THE- KNIGHT 
-!- OF -LIBERTY 

BY 

EZEK1AH-BU1 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

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The true spirit of the leaders in our War for Independence is 
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I will take your dispatches to America in person.' 



THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY 



a Zalc ot tbe ^fortunes of Xajf alette 



/BY 

HEZEKIAH BUTTERWORTH 

AUTHOR OF IN OLD NEW ENGLAND, THE PATRIOT SCHOOLMASTER, 

THE BOYS OF GREENWAY COURT, IN THE BOYHOOD OF LINCOLN, 

THE LOG SCHOOL-HOUSE ON THE COLUMBIA, ETC. 



ILLUSTRATED BY H. WINTHROP PEIRCE 




^^P^' ^: 



NEW YORK 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 

1895 






Copyright, 1895, 
By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY. 



TO 

THE PUPILS OF AMERICAN SCHOOLS 

THIS PICTURE OF A LIFE OF 

UNSELFISH PATRIOTISM 

IS DEDICATED, 

IN THE HOPE THAT IT MAY AID IN THE RENEWAL OF INTEREST 

IN THE PURPOSES AND DEEDS OF THE 

FOUNDERS OF REPUBLICS. 



'*tDl)cre Cibcrtn broclls tt)crc ever 
mil be tl)c conntrs of Cai^ancttc." 




PREFACE. 



N each volume of this series the writer 
has sought to relate some remarkable 
story associated with the life of a hero 
in such a way as to picture the history of that 
hero, making the historical character the back- 
ground of the narrative. The strange story of 
Francis K. Huger in this volume is substantially 
true, and is told to illustrate the life of Lafayette, 
the Knight of Liberty. Not only is the outline 
of the narrative true, but, although the book is 
written in the spirit and after the methods of 
fiction, nearly all the incidents are historical. 

The heroes of these volumes are the creators of 
American Liberty : Adams, Washington, La- 
fayette, Lincoln, Marcus Whitman ; and a new 
volume may picture the life of William Penn. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER FACE 

I. The Rescue of Lafayette i 

II. The Hour of Destiny, 4 

III. How? 12 

IV. Lafayette Meets a Bright Boy, ... 20 
V. Lafayette's Ride, 24 

VI. The White Cockade, 27 

VII. The Albemarle Punch Bowl, .... 34 

VIII. " CORNWALLIS is TAKEN ! " .... 43 

IX. The White Cockade of the Constitution, . 49 

X. The Declaration of the Rights of Man, . 57 

XI. The Black Cockade, 69 

XII. "The Day of Glory has Arrived!" . . 73 

XIII. The Patriotic Parrot, 78 

XIV. The Mysterious Traveler 86 

XV. The Student Traveler's Strange Story, . 95 

XVI. The Silent Surgeon, loi 

XVII. The Bag of Gold, 106 

XVIII. The Lime Juice Letter 120 

XIX. In the Ink of Life 126 

XX. Perilous 134 

XXL The Secret was Out 143 



VI 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER 

XXII 



XXIII. 
XXIV. 



PAGE 

The Key of the Bastille 151 

The Bag of Gold Again, .... 164 

Father and Son, 169 

XXV, Sunset at Waterloo 174 

XXVI. The Unexpected Meeting, . . . .188 

XXVII. Lagrange ip4 

XXVIII. What Made Him Great, 214 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



FACING 
PAGB 



f>iece 



" I will take your dispatches to America in person " Frontispi 

Lafayette and his future deliverer 22 

" ^a ira, 9a ira ! " 65 

"Here it is, all of it " 119 

The attempted rescue of Lafayette 138 

Lafayette's wife visits him in prison 196 




THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

^■- 

CHAPTER I. 

THE RESCUE OF LAFAYETTE. 

HAVE written four volumes in which I 
have placed an historical character in 
the background. These volumes, in the 
form of stories, seek to give a view of some of the 
most interesting incidents in the lives of Sam 
Adams ("The Patriot Schoolmaster"), George 
Washington (" The Boys of Greenway Court "), 
Abraham Lincoln (" In the Boyhood of Lin- 
coln "), and Marcus Whitman (" The Log School 
House on the Columbia"). 

I am now asked to continue these stories of the 
most unselfish men in the great events of Ameri- 
can history. Every noble man has some strano-e 
or remarkable story connected with his life, 
the telling of which pictures his whole history. 
Who shall I next take as a representative of what 



2 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

is most unselfish in American history? WilHam 
Penn ? Roger Williams among the Indians ? La- 
fayette, the friend of Washington and the apostle 
of liberty ? 

I have chosen Lafayette because he is among 
the most unselfish of the world's heroes and bene- 
factors, and because there is one of the most 
remarkable stories associated with his history that 
I have ever met with in the life of any public man. 
It is a story not commonly known ; it is encour- 
aging to those who follow the Divine Ought, or 
the true spirit within, instead of policy, and I love 
to draw upon such material as this. 

Lafayette gave himself to mankind, and he 
stands for a cause that will live forever. But 
unselfish as he was, he had dark days of injustice, 
and in those days he found a true friend in 
one whose young heart was as unselfish as his 
own. 

The world treats us exactly as we treat the 
world ; our conduct all returns to ourselves, for 
like seeks like, and duty done for duty's sake is 
sure of its compensations, though they may come 
in mysterious and unexpected ways. 

But to the strange story I have to tell, the 



THE RESCUE OF LAFAYETTE. 3 

Study of which tends to strengthen one's faith in 
God and man. 

You have read of Lafayette's visits to America, 
when the very air seemed to ring with his name. 
Did you know that he suffered for years in dun- 
geons, and that no one but his persecutors and 
jailers knew where he was ? That his disappear- 
ance was one of the mysteries of the world ? And 
did you ever hear of two students who went in 
search of him, like Blondel for King Richard ? 

I must first introduce you to Lafayette, the 
young French officer, before these events hap- 
pened. 




CHAPTER II. 

THE HOUR OF DESTINY. 

AVE you heard the news from 
America ? " 

A gay company of men in glittering 
uniforms started, and sat in a listening attitude. 

" I see you have not. The colonies have 
united, and declared their independence of the 
Crown in the name of Liberty. Was there ever 
audacity like that ! One Jefferson is leading the 
movement. It means war. Authority against 
Liberty, and the end of it all is not hard to see. 
The discontent should have been crushed out 
long ago, but at last the king is aroused, and 
he will put down rebellion there with a firm 
hand." 

The speaker was the Duke of Gloucester, 
brother of George III. The place, a military 
banquet hall, at the great German fortress of 
Metz. Afar the Moselle lay gleaming, and the 
parks and gardens around the ponderous fortifi- 

4 



THE HOUR OF DESTINY. 5 

cations were glowing with fresh leaves and 
flowers. 

" What do the American colonies want of 
liberty ? Why should they resist being taxed 
for a good government which they know not how 
to administer themselves ! They claim that all 
men are born free and equal, and that the sense 
of the majority should rule. Why, such an idea 
would overturn the whole wisdom of the past. 
And to what an extent have they gone ! They 
would make their public officers the servants of 
the people. Think of that ! They would elect 
officers to be the servants of the people, and call 
such a government as that Liberty ! And further- 
more they declare that the liberty to do right is 
the birthright of every man ! Who would want 
to live in a land like that?" 

" I would ! " 

The speaker was a young French officer in his 
nineteenth year. He had been listening to the 
words of the duke. His face flashed and glowed, 
and his hand trembled on the hilt of his sword. 
The word " Liberty " seemed to thrill him. From 
a boy he had had an inward conviction that 
he was born to be a defender of Liberty, and 



THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

leader of the cause of human freedom in the 
world. That young man was the Marquis de La- 
fayette. 

" What are the dispatches that you have 
received from America?" asked an English ofificer 
of the duke. 

" That the colonies are in rebellion. That the 
Colonists are about to maintain their belief in the 
equal rights of man." 

" I would gladly draw my sword in such a cause 
as that," said the young Marquis de Lafayette 
to a friend in a low voice. " I am assured that 
some such cause is to be my destiny. There are 
times when the soul hears a voice that calls it to 
duty and makes that duty clear. The voice 
comes as it were from the heavens. The soul 
which has been haunted by ideals and made rest- 
less hears it and owns it, and makes it the captain 
of its life. The duke's words have a strange 
meaning to me. I myself believe in the liberty 
of men to do right, and I do not believe in 
the right of Crowns to compel men to do 
wrong." 

The duke was about to speak. 

" The colonists hold that governments are insti- 



THE HOUR OF DESTINY. 7 

tuted for the good of the people. Could such an 
idea triumph, it would reverse the order of the 
world." 

The American idea and purpose thrilled the 
heart of the young marquis. The duke, in con- 
demning- the American people had expressed his 
own views in those of the colonists. 

" I believe in that cause," said Lafayette to a 
brother officer. " I believe in it with all my 
heart. I hold to the equal rights and brother- 
hood of all mankind. Call it what you will, 
every man should have the right to do right and 
should never be compelled to do wrong. I care 
not for fame, nor power, nor wealth, for their own 
sake ; I would gladly draw my sword, and give 
my fortune to a cause like that, even if it brought 
me poverty and loss. I would like to espouse the 
cause of the colonists." 

" But your young wife ? " said the officer, check- 
ing his friend's ardent aspirations. 

The young marquis answered — we follow the 
thoughts of his early inspirations as related in later 
years : " No private affection can ever divert me 
from public duty. I have a bride whom I love 
with a devotion as great as any living man. But if 



8 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

I were to draw my sword in the name of Liberty 
she would one day be proud that I had done so. 
What is the use of life but to live for the things 
that live, and for the highest cause that can 
claim our service ? What is selfish pleasure like 
suffering for a cause ? I must be what I ought 
to be. But hold, listen ! what is the duke 
saying ? " 

" Our forces have routed the Americans at 
Bunker Hill, but thqy have left Boston, and the 
struggle now goes on in New York and New 
Jersey." 

" Boston ! " It may have been the first time that 
the marquis ever heard that word as applied to an 
American town. Lafayette had been born at the 
Chateau Chavagnac, Auvergne, France, Septem- 
ber 6, 1757. His father, a brave French officer, 
had fallen at Minden, and his mother had died in 
1770, leaving a great fortune and vast estates. 
He inherited from his parents a love of liberty 
that was the ruling passion of his soul. His boy- 
hood had been unlike other boys'. It had been a 
dream of the welfare of humanity. He had early 
entered the army and was stationed at Metz when 
the English duke arrived, and he had been 



THE HOUR OF DESTINY. 9 

included among the guests at this memorable 
banquet — a banquet in which the destiny of 
America seems to have been determined, for the 
inspiration that day in the soul of Lafayette led 
to final triumphs of the American armies at York- 
town. 

" And who," said Lafayette, rising, " is the 
leader of the American army ? " 

He listened. 

" George Washington," said an English officer, 
bowing across the glittering board. 

" George Washington ! " Had the Marquis de 
Lafayette ever heard that name before ! We 
know not. It was a name of destiny to him now. 
Washington, the father of liberty! His mission 
leaped into his mind in full force. The freedom 
of the American colonies should be his grand pur- 
pose in life, and he would unite his sword with 
that of the unknown leader of liberty in the 
West. 

The banquet ended. The summer night came 
on over the Moselle and its old towers and bloom- 
ing gardens. But young Lafayette's thoughts 
were with the colonies struggling for freedom in 
the West. 



JO THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

He sought the Duke of Gloucester, and the two 
talked together long on the purpose of the Eng- 
lish colonies. " We must crush the colonies," 
said the duke. ** They are in rebellion. It will 
be an easy thing to do. Authority must be 
respected." 

" And crush liberty — the liberty of the new 
world," thought the young marquis. 

The Moselle darkened ; the stars came out, 
and the young marquis wandered out on the 
esplanade. 

" Washington — George Washington ! " 

That banquet had made him one of the most 
unselfish heroes of liberty who ever drew the 
sword. But how should he find the field of strug- 
gle, more than three thousand miles away ? He 
dreamed that night under the moon and stars, 
and his dream came true. 

" Every man is a debtor to his calling," he 
thought. " I must be that which I ought to be or 
else I shall be nothing. Nobler deeds than man 
has ever done remain to be done. Liberty, I 
would find thy field. I was born for thee ! 
Where? How?" 

Such, as we gather from his memoirs, must 



THE HOUR OF DESTINY. II 

have been the dreams of Lafayette at this time. 
Destiny had shown him her face, like Selene to 
Endymion in the fable. He knew for what he 
was born, but again and again came the ques- 
tion— "How shall I find the field?" 




CHAPTER III. 

HOW? 

HERE was an American commissioner in 
Paris. His name was Silas Deane. He 
was born at Groton, Conn., 1737, and 
graduated at Yale College, 1758. He had been a 
member of the Continental Congress in 1774, and 
had been sent to France as the financial agent of 
the united Colonies. 

Young Lafayette left Metz to consult with this 
man. 

" I have come," said Lafayette, " to offer my 
sword to the liberties of your country. I hope 
that your cause is advancing. It is one of the 
noblest in the world." 

" No," said Mr. Deane, " if the dispatches that 
have just arrived are true, the cause is not advan- 
cing. The news is that the 'insurgents,' as the 
patriots are called, have been driven toward 
Philadelphia, through the Jerseys, by a powerful 

force of British regulars. The news may not be 

12 



HOW ? 13 

trustworthy, but it has prevented me from secur- 
ing credit for America. My friend Benjamin 
Franklin will soon be here, and I will present you 
to him, and you may trust his advice and sound- 
ness of judgment. You are a rich man, I 
believe." 

" I have an ample fortune." 

His income from his estates was some $37,000 
per year. 

" More than ample for my own wants, and in 
espousing the cause of America I seek not to add 
to my fortune, but to spend what I can spare in 
this crisis of human need. I have no thought of 
going to America for pay. All that I have and 
am I offer to the cause of liberty, which is not of 
America alone, but of all mankind. I feel within 
myself a calling to which I must be true." 

Silas Deane saw in Lafayette one of these 
young men who become powerful by giving up 
self for the service of others. He introduced him 
to Benjamin Franklin, who also saw in the young 
marquis a soul that at once won his admira- 
tion. Franklin was one of the American com- 
missioners. 

The commissioners agreed to consider this offer 



14 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

of the chivalrous Frenchman to the cause of 
American liberty. 

" Rich," said one of them. 

" With a young and beautiful wife," said the 
other. 

" The favorite of the army." 

" A favorite of the court." 

" A splendid estate of thousands of acres in the 
mountain walled lands of provincial France." 

" Of noble ancestry." 

" Yet willing to give his fortune and life if need 
be to the cause of a people not his own." 

" The world does not produce many men like 
him. Yet those that deny themselves the most 
receive the most ; it is the law of life and of com- 
pensation. That boy soldier would have been 
worthy of Greece." 

" And he may yet find a place in the Plutarch's 
lives of the present age. Such a soul must have 
a future." 

** But what can be done for him ? " 

"If the present news is true — nothing. We 
cannot so much as command the means to pur- 
chase a vessel to carry arms to America." 

" We must report that to him ? " 



HOW? 15 

" Yes, and it fills me with shame to do so." 

The commissioners and the young marquis met 
again. 

" We honor your spirit," said one of the com- 
missioners, " but we have no means to help you, 
not even the money to buy a ship. Our army is 
in peril, and the cause looks dark, dark. Only 
the soul can conquer in needs like this." 

Lafayette listened to the discouraging report. 
His own soul rose to the height of the necessity. 
He answered, and we here repeat nearly his exact 
words : " Sirs, hitherto I have only cherished your 
cause, but now, sirs, I am going to serve it." He 
added with the soul of a true hero, and here again 
we repeat nearly his own words : " The lower 
your cause is in the opinion of the people the 
greater effect my departure will have among 
patriotic men, and since, my friends, you are not 
able to purchase a vessel, I will do so at my own 
expense, and I will fit it out, and I will take in 
person your dispatches to America ! " 

It was that resolution, made when the cause of 
liberty in America seemed hopeless, that finally 
defeated Lord Cornwallis, and gave the cause of 
American liberty as an example to the world. 



l6 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

" When," says Lafayette, in his memoirs, " I 
presented my boyish face to Mr. Deane, I spoke 
more of my ardor in the cause than of my experi- 
ence. But I dwelt upon the effect that my depar- 
ture would excite in France, and he signed my 
documents." 

One loves to picture that " boyish face." 

So young Lafayette gave his name, fame, and 
influence to the cause of freedom in a foreign land, 
as a debtor to his inward callinof. He went to 
Passy, where Dr. Franklin was, and there he met 
a German officer, as patriotic as himself. Baron 
de Kalb. This officer, too, had espoused the 
cause of liberty, believing it to be the cause of the 
world. He was older than Lafayette, having 
been born in Bavaria, 1721. The two became 
friends. They thought they had secured a ship at 
Bordeaux, but the ship could not at once be got 
ready for sea. So they with other volunteers to 
the American cause, hurried to Passage, a Spanish 
port, to engage another conveyance. 

But Lafayette's patriotism was to be still 
further put to the test. 

At Bordeaux there came to him an order from 
the king of the French : 



HOW ? 17 

" You must not leave the country. Repair to 
Marseilles." 

Should he disobey the king ? Should he 
imperil his estates and his fortune ? Should he 
endanger his noble wife ? 

" Thou must be that which thou oughtest to 
be," said the spirit of his calling. Yes, for liberty. 

"What will you do?" asked his brother volun- 
teers. " Will you return ? " 

" No — I must go ! And you ?" 

"We will go!" 

They were words of fate. Lafayette went to 
Marseilles, but returned again. So out of the 
Spanish port he and his eleven comrades sailed, 
leaving all things but honor, to give their swords 
to the cause of liberty in the West. 

There is no nobler page of history than this, and 
nothing more worthy may tempt historic fiction. 

On the sea, in peril of capture, with nothing to 
hope for but the victory of liberty ! On, on, 
to the coasts of the Carolinas, where the patriots 
arrived in June, 1777. 

" The moment I heard of America I loved her. 
The moment I knew she was fighting for liberty I 
burned with desire to bleed for her." 



l8 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

So said Lafayette in a letter to the President 
of the Continental Congress. 

He was now in America, the land of his dreams, 
and he was only about twenty years of age. 

On landing, a very notable incident occurred. 
The shores of the New World filled the two offi- 
cers, Lafayette and Baron de Kalb, with an 
inspirational feeling. Their emotions impelled 
them to make their vows to God. The doors of 
heaven might open to hear it, for nobler men 
never breathed forth their purpose in life. 

Above them glowed the summer sky of the 
Carolinas. It was night as the two stood upon 
the shore. 

" I pledge myself and all that I have to the 
cause of the liberty of America," said Lafayette, 
" and I offer my life to this sacred cause." 

" America, I pledge myself and all that I am to 
thee and the cause of human freedom ! " said 
Baron de Kalb. 

The incident is a true one — the stars were 
above them, and behind them rolled the sea. 
Such in substance were the vows of these two 
men, as they landed in America. 

They saw a light in the distance. They went 



HOW ? 19 

toward it. It was in the plantation house of 
Major Benjamin Huger. 

Morning showed a landscape blossoming with 
magnolias ; in the sunny plantations the mocking- 
birds were singing, and the two officers here first 
saw the sun of the New World. Were those mid- 
night resolutions sentiments ? If so, they were 
sentiments that made character, and character 
destiny, and that helped give to mankind its 
birthright, to toiling millions a field of labor, and 
the rights of labor their dues. The birthrights of 
universal liberty were in them. 




CHAPTER IV. 

LAFAYETTE MEETS A BRIGHT BOY. 

T the house of Major Huger a strange 
incident happened. Major Huger had a 
son, who was destined to become in 
future years " the deliverer of Lafayette." His 
name was Francis K. Huger. His portrait in 
a frame of gold once hung, and may now prob- 
ably be seen, at Lagrange, the chateau of La- 
fayette. It bears this inscription : 

FRANCIS K. HUGER. 

Presented to 

GENERAL LAFAYETTE, 

by the City of Charleston, 

through 

Samuel Prioleau, 

Intendant, 

1825. 

Made by Fletcher and Gardnier, Phil. 

The portrait represents a man of broad fore- 
head with width of ideality, of a refined, slender 

face, a prominent nose, and thin, resolute lips. 

20 



LAFAYETTE MEETS A BRIGHT BOY. 21 

People walk slowly before it and say that that pic- 
ture represents " The Deliverer of Lafayette." 
The Carolinas have always been proud of this 
young man and his heroic deed. His name is 
pronounced Huzay or Huzhay. 

Lafayette loved children, and this boy, Francis, 
soon found himself in the patriot's lap, and we, 
with a questioning curiosity, may fancy his 
inquiries to have been something like these: 
"You have come over the sea ?" 
" Yes, my boy, a far, far journey." 
** But, please sir, why did you come ?" 
*' To help the people gain their liberties." 
** But, please sir, you have your liberty." 
" Yes, my boy, in a measure. I could have 
more." 

" And you sailed over the sea to help us ? " 
" Yes, we hope to help your country." 
** Please sir, will they pay you ? " 
"Yes, my boy." 
"Who?" 

" Everybody, my heart here — heaven — you ; 
perhaps you will one day pay me." 
"You came because you loved us ?" 
"Yes, my boy." 



22 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

" One day we will all love you. I do now." 

" And I love you, my boy." 

" Shall we ever meet again ? I mean after you 
go away ? " 

Lafayette looked into the beautiful eyes of the 
little Southerner. 

" I do not know what may be in store for us. 
Love never dies." 

" I shall love you always. And if I grow up, I 
will pay you." 

" What a heart you have, my boy ! " 

" You love people whom you have never seen ? " 

" Yes." 

" Perhaps people whom you have never seen 
will love you some day," 

" Yes, that is the way that things happen, my 
boy ; whatever may befall me, I do not believe I 
will ever be entirely forsaken, for those who help 
others always find help in their needs." 

" Please sir, are you a rich man ? I hope so." 

" Yes, I have a good fortune." 

" Then you will never want." 

" I cannot tell. People who have fortunes are 
sometimes forsaken. It is the heart of love that 
does not forsake one in misfortune." 




LafaycHc and lii.-< future dclivcicr. 



LAFAYETTE MEETS A BRIGHT BOY. 23 

" Suppose you were to lose your fortune, and 
be poor, and all folks forget you, or lose you, 
please sir, what would you do ? " 

"I would trust. Some heart would find me. 
The world treats us as we treat the world. Some 
true heart would find me." 

The boy and the young officer became friends. 
It was a link in the chain of destiny. 




CHAPTER V. 

Lafayette's ride. 

AFAYETTE furnished money to 
Charleston to provide clothing for the 
soldiers under General Moultrie, and he 
and Baron de Kalb started in a carriage for Phila- 
delphia, where the Continental Congress was, late 
in June, 1777. 

It was the fall tide of the year. The planta- 
tions were green with vegetation and gay with 
bloom. The fame of the officers had preceded 
them, and caused the patriots in some places to 
await their coming. The roads were in parts of 
the country new, and all things were novel to the 
two officers and their friends. 

They rode rapidly. 

*' We must make a short journey," said they. 
" It is a ride for liberty ! " 

The distance was some seven hundred miles. 
The coach rolled forward as if it were for a re-en- 
forcement. The party stopped to cool in the 

24 



LAFAYETTE'S RIDE. 25 

shadows of mountains, and beside sunny-bosomed 
waters. They rested a little at inns and planta- 
tion houses, but they were impatient to meet the 
American patriotic leaders, and Washington and 
the army of liberty. 

In the rapid ride the coach broke down. 

" Horses are better than coaches," said they, 
and they left the coach, and hurried forward on 
horseback, riding with the utmost speed. 

Through the burning Carolinas, through Vir- 
ginia, across the Potomac, where the glorious 
dome of the Capitol and the Washington monu- 
ment would in the coming century rise in air, 
they pursued their way. 

Did a stranger ask the cause of their haste ? 

" We are riding for liberty ! " 

Did he ask who they were hurrying so Impetu- 
ously to see ? 

" Washington and the army of liberty ! " 

The patriots who knew them cheered them as 
they passed. The British minister in Paris had 
tried to prevent them from coming to America, 
and their flight had created a great impression 
in Europe, and their arrival was destined to 
be an inspiration here. They came flying into 



26 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. ' 

Philadelphia, met the patriotic leaders, and one 
of the first acts of Lafayette was to present to 
Washington sixty thousand francs, to meet a 
crisis of the cause. 

Lafayette offered to enter the army as a com- 
mon soldier. Washington read his soul when 
they first met, and soon secured for him a major 
general's commission. 

Fate, fortune. Providence, rode with them on 
those midsummer days through the Carolinas 
and Virginia ; over the hills of Maryland and 
Pennsylvania ; past the Southern cotton fields, 
and Northern fields of corn. The young French- 
man was bearing victory with him. He saw the 
future and his soul glowed. He bore in his 
young heart the inspiration of the ages. The 
cause of the liberty of the world was in that ride ! 
It was one of the grandest rides in history, to 
which Charles Sumner paid the tribute of some of 
the best passages of a grand oration. 



■ I 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE WHITE COCKADE. 

AJOR BENJAMIN HUGER, at whose 
plantation house little Francis Kinlock 
Huger had first met Lafayette, was one 
of the five patriot brothers, who were farmers in 
the Carolinas. This man was killed by an acci- 
dent before his own lines in Charleston, 1 779. 

One autumn day, not many months after this 
event, there came riding down to the Huger 
plantation an orderly of William Augustine 
Washington, a kinsman of George Washington. 
This orderly reined his steed before the door of 
the patriot's mansion. 

The family hurried out to give a welcome and 
to inquire the news. The orderly seemed in high 
spirits and pointed to his hat. On his hat was a 
white rosette on a orround of black. 

" Has there been a victory ?" asked one of the 
family. 

" Yes, good friends, something more than vic- 

27 



28 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

tory. Our independence is now as sure as any 
event can be." 

He pointed again to the rosette. 

" What has happened ?" broke from all lips. 

"Lafayette!" 

He was bidden to dismount, and he entered the 
house gayly, and a meal was prepared for him. 

The little boy again seemed all eyes and ears. 
He climbed upon the stranger's knees as he had 
done on Lafayette's when the latter came up 
from the seaside after pledging his all, under the 
night sky, to the independence of America. 

" Did Lafayette give you the white rose on 
your hat ? " asked the boy. 

"No; Washington." 

" William Washington, was it, sir ? " 

" No, General George Washington." 

"What did he give you the ribbon for, sir ?" 

"For a cockade." 

" What is a cockade, sir?" 

" It is a rosette to wear on the hat. General 
George Washington has ordered that all the offi- 
cers of the army shall wear white rosettes on their 
hats, in honor of the return of Lafayette." 

" Lafayette, Lafayette ! " said the boy, " I was 



THE WHITE COCKADE. 29 

the first one that he ever kissed in America. He 
said that he loved America when he first heard 
her name spoken ; and then he said he loved me, 
and he held me in his lap just as you do now and 
he let me ask him questions. Where has Lafay- 
ette been, sir? You said he had returned." 

" He has been to France, my little boy, for I 
must tell the story through you, and well I may, 
as you were among the first to welcome him. 
He has been to France to secure a French army 
from the king to give us independence, and he 
has done it. He has landed at Newport with an 
army and navy, under the great Count Rocham- 
beau ! " 

" Then the vow to win liberty for America that 
he made out there on the coast by the sea was an 
honest one. Look out yonder — there is where he 
was, sir ! " 

A wide vista opened through the magnolias, 
and afar lay the cotton fields and beyond them 
rolled the sea. 

" He saw a light," said the boy. 

" When he landed ?" asked the orderly. 

"Yes; it was ours; I am glad it was ours. 
Who would have thought that he would have met 



30 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

me, me? I wonder if I will ever see him again ! 
He put his arms around me, so. Of all the great 
men in the world, next to Washington, I would 
rather see Lafayette." 

" We have let the boy talk long enough," said 
a brother of Major Huger. "You have good 
news to tell. Let us have it. Francis, you will 
be quiet now while the orderly tells us the 
news." 

" Lafayette left Boston in February [1779] ^"<^» 
after a short winter voyage arrived at Brest. 
The French court received him with favor, 
though the king was obliged to imprison him for 
one week for leaving the country contrary to his 
orders. The imprisonment only amused the court 
and his prison was but a room in his brother-in- 
law's house. When his punishment was over, all 
Paris hailed him with delight and honor. The 
king listened to his plea for America as to a son, 
and granted him a powerful fleet, and an army six 
thousand strong." 

" Glory to Lafayette ! " exclaimed the boy, 
" Glory — look out there — he promised all this to 
us out there / " 

" Be quiet, my little friend," said the orderly. 



THE WHITE COCKADE. 3 1 

" Be quiet ! how could I be quiet ? I would 
like to crow." 

** Well, not now. The French fleet and army- 
arrived at Newport July lo [1780]. Bells rung, 
and flags are flying in all the East. We must 
put flags all over the plantation houses. By the 
way, have you heard of the boast that General 
Tarleton has made?" 

" No ; he is the most brutal officer that has ever 
appeared on the field. What is his threat?" 
said one of the family. 

" He says that he will send William Washing- 
ton to London in chains ; that he will put the 
British flag over every plantation house in the 
Carolinas, and that he will drink his victory out 
of Lady Ashe's punch bowl." 

"What is Lady Ashe's punch bowl?" asked 
the boy. 

"Oh, it is a famous bowl in Wilmington, or in 
some of the houses belonging to the great family." 

" But he will have to get William Washington 
before he can send him to London in chains, will 
he not ? " 

" Yes, my boy. And he will have to subdue 
the Carolinas more than he has yet, to put the 



32 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

British flag over every plantation house. As for 
the Albemarle punch bowl, I will tell you the 
story of that after dinner. But I have not told 
you all the news yet." 

The family listened intently. 

" The King of France has made General George 
Washington lieutenant general of the empire of 
France, so that he may outrank the French 
general who has come to America." 

" Glory to the king ! " said the boy. " What 
color does he wear ? " 

" White, my son ; Bourbon lilies." 

" What is that ? " said the orderly, pointing to 
his hat. 

" You said it was a cockade." 

"What color is it?" 

** White." 

" It did not use to be white." 

" The one that father used to wear was black. 
What changed it to white ? " 

''The order of Washington, as I said, in honor 
of Lafayette. All the American officers are 
henceforth to wear the white cockade." 

The boy looked wistfully at the orderly's hat. 

" I wish you would give it to me." 



THE WHITE COCKADE. 33 

" What, my hat ? " 

" No ; the white cockade." 

" You shall have it, my boy, for I have another. 
You ought to have one, as you were among the 
first to welcome Lafayette." 

The orderly gave the boy the rosette. Francis 
placed it on his own hat, and walked to and fro, to 
the delight of the family. He saluted each one, 
lifting his right hand. 

" I wish that he could see me now," said he. 

" Who see you ? " asked the orderly. 

" General Lafayette ! " 




CHAPTER VII. 

THE ALBEMARLE PUNCH BOWL. 

HE orderly was called to a sumptuous 
dinner, after which the family again 
gathered around him, and the boy asked 
for the story of Lady Ashe's punch bowl, for the 
way that the officer had alluded to it had much 
excited his curiosity. 

"The Albemarle punch bowl," he said; "you 
have heard of it, no doubt. It has a long history, 
but I am not going to tell that, my boy. It never 
will be mended again ; there were pieces enough 
to have decorated a regiment. Lady Ashe made 
thorough work of it." 

" Is it broken ? " asked Mrs. Huger. 

" Broken ? yes, it has been dashed into a hun- 
dred pieces." 

" It was the pride of the family," said Mrs. 
Huger, " and many a time has it served them in 
the old banquet halls. Did the British officers 
destroy it ? " 

34 



THE ALBEMARLE PUNCH BOWL. 35 

" No. Lady Ashe did it with her own hands. 
You have heard," he continued, with the boy at 
his knee, " that General Tarleton once boasted 
that he would send William Washington to Lon- 
don in chains ; that he would put the British flag 
over every plantation house in the Carolinas, and 
would drink his victory out of Lady Ashe's punch 
bowl. You know what the family of General 
Ashe are. They stand by the honor of the 
general, who was the soul of the old Provincial 
Congress, and who raised a regiment at his own 
expense, even though he was defeated at Briar 
Creek. The British have never ceased to annoy 
his family since Wilmington fell into their hands. 
Now, this is the queer story that the people are 
telling : Lady Ashe is a woman of mettle, and I 
think it may be true. When she heard of General 
Tarleton's boast, she said to an American : 

" ' I will see — General Tarleton dines at your 
house to-morrow, I believe.' 

" • Yes, would you like to meet him ?' asked the 
gentleman. 

" ' I would like to speak to him on the occasion/ 
said the lady. 

" ' Then you will be my guest.' 



36 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

** The day came. General Tarleton and his 
staff were present at the fine old house, and Lady 
Ashe was among the guests. 

" * I would like to meet your Colonel Washing- 
ton,' said General Tarleton. ' I have never seen 
him.' 

" * If you had only looked behind you, after the 
battle of Cowpens, you might have done so,' said 
Lady Ashe. 

" It was a sharp retort to remind Tarleton of his 
retreat then and there in the guest rooms. But 
Lady Ashe never feared the face of day. 

" The tables were spread, and the British ofificers 
assembled, feeling that they were doing honor to 
by their host their presence. Wine began to flow, 
when one of the guests said : 

" ' Lady Ashe, now is the time for the Albe- 
marle punch bowl.* 

"'Wait a few minutes,' said she; 'and I will 
bring it.' 

" She arose and left the room. 

" The guests waited. 

" Presently the door was opened. Lady Ashe 
came into the room slowly and with a radiant face. 
She held the punch bowl over her head. It was 



THE ALBEMARLE PUNCH BOWL. 37 

brimming with roses. The flowers filled the room 
with fragrance. Were they swimming on a sur- 
face of waving punch ? 

" She came forward with measured step, as if to 
a minuet, casting her eyes at times up to the great 
pile of roses above her. When she had reached 
the head of the table she stopped, and stood like 
a statue, with uplifted eyes. 

" How beautiful and noble and recjal she 
looked ! 

" The guests were astonished and silent. No 
one moved. She did not lower the great bowl. 
At last, amid the deep silence she dropped her 
eyes on the guests, and then fixed them on the 
British officer. 

" ' General Tarleton,' she said, in a deep, musical 
voice ; ' General Tarleton, this is the Albemarle 
punch bowl. Many members of the Provincial 
Congress have admired it for its beauty, and it 
has found a place in many gatherings of patriots, 
though they were not drinking men. Men with a 
purpose do not dine and wine much, but this bowl, 
as a work of beauty and art, has been the pride of 
our family treasures. It is not filled with punch 
to-day ; it is filled with roses. 



38 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

" ' General Tarleton, look at it. Why is it filled 
with roses, instead of punch ? Because we are 
poor? No, we have fallen under your power, but 
we are not poor. Because we are inhospitable ? 
Carolinians would be hospitable, though poor. 

" ' General Tarleton, listen. I hear that you 
have grown boastful of late. I hear that you have 
said that you would send William Washington to 
London in chains, and would put the British flag 
over every plantation house in the Carolinas. Is 
that so, General Tarleton ?' 

" ' I will send William Washington to London 
in chains, if I can get him, madam ; and I would 
be glad, madam, to see my own flag flying over 
all the plantation houses in the Carolinas, as they 
are floating here to-day.' 

" 'And, General Tarleton, I hear that you have 
also boasted that you will celebrate your victory 
by the use of this punch bowl. 

" ' General Tarleton ' 

" Lady Ashe dashed the punch bowl to the floor, 
breaking it into a thousand pieces. 

" ' General Tarleton, that is one part of your 
prophecy that will never be fulfilled ! ' 

" I hope the story is true ; if it be not, it 



THE ALBEMARLE PUNCH BOWL. 39 

ought to be, and reports do not spring out of the 
earth." 

" Lafayette will drive the British from Wilming- 
ton, will he not ? " asked the boy. 

" So I hope. He is, I hear, given in part the 
direction of the Southern campaign," said the 
orderly. 

" Lafayette shall be my hero, after Washing- 
ton," said the boy, "and I will never surrender 
the white cockade." 

The boy touched his hat, and the company 
laughed, and the orderly said : 

" Good, my boy ; Lafayette shall be your hero 
and a hero of that hero may you ever be proud 
to be ! " 

Later in the day, little Francis Huger had the 
orderly to himself. He may have recalled the 
unusual attention that he had received from 
Lafayette. Be that as it may, his fancy was 
excited, and his thoughts were inquisitive, though 
nobly so. 

"Orderly John," he said, for so the popular 
orderly and courier was called, " what if Lafayette 
should help us gain our liberties ; would he then 
not be a great man like Washington ? " 



40 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

*' He certainly would, my boy." 

'' Orderly John, suppose he then should go 
back, and sometime return to this country again. 
Would not all the people be glad ? " 

"Yes." 

'• And shout ? " 

"Yes." 

" So would I. Do you suppose that he would 
remember me ? " 

" I think that he would." 

"Why?" 

" He met you at a great crisis of his life." 

" What do you mean by crisis ? " 

" He had just made a vow, as you know ; he 
saw the light of your house ; he was lonely, and 
he turned his heart to you. He could never 
forget it." 

" I wish I could do something to honor him, 
Orderly John. What is the greatest thing a man 
could do for another man. Orderly John ?" 

" To be willing to lay down his life for him." 

" I would never have such a chance, would I ? " 

" I cannot tell. This world brings many 
changes. Events come to those who have the 
spirit of them." 



THE ALBEMARLE PUNCH BOWL. 4I 

" What do you mean by that, Orderly John ?" 
"The thinofs that we would do sometimes come 

to US." 

" Orderly John, that would be the happiest 
hour in my life. What thing of all the world 
would make a man like Lafayette most happy ? " 

" I think, my boy, that the thing that would 
make a hero most happy would be the triumph 
of his cause." 

" Yes, and what else." 

" Well, to meet an unknown man who had 
offered to give up his life for him." 

" To meet an unknown man who had offered to 
give up his life for him? Why would that make 
him so happy. Orderly John ?" 

" He would then meet one who had loved him 
better than himself. There could be no other 
meeting like that." 

" This nation may be free, and Lafayette may 
go away ; and it may grow, and invite him to 
come back again. I like to dream of it, and, 
Orderly John, I like to dream that when that day 
comes, I will be there. I like to fancy such 
things. Do dreams come true ? " 

"Yes, often, my boy. Everyone dreams of 



42 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

what he would Hke most to be. Almost every 
little boy is a Shakespere in his dreams." 

" Oh, Orderly John ! I never dream of that. 
But everyone can be a kind of Reward of Merit 
to others, can he not ? " 

Lafayette had dreamed his dream of liberty on 
the green Carolinian shore. It was coming true, 
for he had made a vow of it, and his life was fol- 
lowing the grand resolution. Here was a little 
dreamer, whose heart was following the fortunes 
of Lafayette. Would his dreams one day prove 
true ? 

Desires have eyes, and hopes are events. Are 
the boy and the general to meet again ? When ? 
Where ? That is our story. 




CHAPTER VIII. 

"CORNWALLIS IS TAKEN !" 

AFAYETTE was made the principal 
general of the campaign against Lord 
Cornwallis, and his movements in Vir- 
ginia were regarded as among the most brilliant 
in military history. He compelled the British 
army to concentrate at a point where they could 
be seized. 

The siege of Yorktown crowned the efforts of 
Lafayette for American independence. The 
allied armies joined Lafayette for this last cam- 
paign of the revolution, September 25, 1781. The 
besieging army consisted of sixteen thousand 
men, under the chief command of Washington, 
assisted by Rochambeau ; but Lafayette, who had 
been the directing mind and energy of the envi- 
ronment of the army of Cornwallis, was allowed 
to consummate his own plan. On September 28 
twelve thousand men marched from Williamsburg, 
driving the British before them into the intrench- 

43 



44 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

ments of Yorktown. The allies surrounded the 
place. The fleet of De Grasse lay off the town 
in Lynn Haven Bay to prevent any relief of the 
British troops. 

On the night of October 6 the cannonade 
began from the French ships, and the American 
army advanced their intrenchments. Day by day 
the circle of the besieging army contracted around 
the place. Two British redoubts were carried, 
and the situation of Lord Cornwallis became most 
critical. 

He resolved to escape by taking his army 
across the river. Boats were prepared, and the 
troops began their secret march when a furious 
storm arose, and the troops returned. The earl 
now lost all hope, and was forced to sign terms of 
capitulation. 

Lafayette's heart was filled with a patriotic 
glow when he found that he was forcing Lord 
Cornwallis into these limits, which must end in 
capture. Would you know how he felt ? The 
following extract from a letter which he wrote to 
Washington will picture his soul : 

" In the present state of affairs I hope you will 
come yourself to Virginia. Lord Cornwallis must 



" CORNWALLIS IS TAKEN ! " 45 

be attacked with pretty great apparatus ; but when 
the French fleet takes possession of the bay and 
rivers, and we form a land force superior to his, 
that army must sooner or later be forced to sur- 
render, as we may get what re-enforcements we 
please. 

" I heartily thank you for having ordered me to 
remain in Virginia ; It is to your goodness that I 
am indebted y^(7r the most beautiful prospect ivhich 
I may ever be ho Id'' 

That prospect was realized when Yorktown fell 
and liberty was won, at that time for America and 
ultimately for the world. 

Lafayette became the hero of two worlds, but it 
is probable that the surrender of Lord Cornwallis, 
and the triumph of the American army, was the 
most beautiful vision that he ever beheld. He 
fought for the cause of liberty universal, and it 
was at Yorktown that that cause was won. He 
must have ever looked upon it as Freedom's coro- 
nation day. 

" I loved America when I first heard her name," 
he once said, and which remark we have already 
quoted. America now was to love his name, 
forever more, and to honor it with undying 



4^ THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

fame. He had fulfilled the trust bom in his 
soul. 

At midnight, October 23, 1781, an aid-de-camp 
of Washington rode into Philadelphia from York- 
town. The watchman had been pacing the 
streets, crying : 

*' Past ten o'clock and all is well." 

" Past eleven o'clock and all is well." 

" Past twelve o'clock and all is well." 

The aid-de-camp, Lieutenant Colonel Tilghman, 
rode up to the house of the President of the Con- 
gress and knocked. 

"I arrest you," said a watchman. "Why do 
you disturb the peace?" 

" Cor7izvallis is taken! " said the aid. 

" Past one o'clock and Cornwallis is taken ! " 
cried the watchman. 

The people heard. Lights flashed from win- 
dow to window. The old State house bell becran 
to clang. 

" Past two o'clock and Cornwallis is taken ! " 
we may fancy the intelligence to have been 
announced with the hours. 

The morning broke amid the booming of can- 
non. Yorktown had surrendered and the York- 



" CORNWALLIS IS TAKEN ! " 47 

town siege had been the grand campaign of 
Lafayette. 

Into South Carolina couriers were riding. 
Among them was the orderly. He rode out of 
his way to the Huger mansion. The family had 
seen him and were awaiting him. 

" Liberty is won," said the orderly ; " Yorktown 
has surrendered ! Seven thousand men and more 
than two hundred cannon ! Shout, the world is 
taken ! Mankind is to be free ! Shout ! Shout ! 
The campaign of Lafayette has crowned the 
American army ; it was Lafayette whose strategy 
shut up Cornwallis, and compelled him to sur- 
render his army to Washington ! Shout ! Shout ! 
Boy, where is your white cockade ? " 

" Here, sir." 

" Aye, and be true to it ever." 

" Lafayette is my hero, sir." 

" And the world's. For in fiorhtinof for our 
liberties he has fought for the freedom of all man- 
kind. The victors at Yorktown will one day 
make France itself free. Long live Washington, 
and long live Lafayette ! " 

" What will Lafayette now do ? " asked the boy. 

"He will return to France, and try to secure 



48 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

for her people that which he has helped us to 
win." 

This was the history of Lafayette after the 
American revolution. He -went to his beautiful 
home among the mountains, but the people of 
France were beginning to struggle to be free. 

We must follow Lafayette in these struggles, 
which made him the hero of the liberties of 
France. The French republic of to-day owes her 
glory largely to the character of Lafayette. But 
Liberty in France was often overthrown before 
she found her stable place. The leader of 
progress usually falls a martyr to his cause. But 
he will not lose faith, if the cause but go on. 



7 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE WHITE COCKADE OF THE CONSTITUTION. 

N the early struggles of the French for 
liberty, Lafayette, in whose honor the 
white cockade had been brought into 
use in America, became again the hero of the 
white cockade. 

We must tell you how Lafayette came to give 
to France the white cockade. There was formed 
a legislative body in France, to make a constitu- 
tion which should protect the rights of the people, 
which was called the Constituent Assembly. 
The king secretly was opposed to this assembly, 
and began to concentrate an army to sustain his 
original power. This threw the city of Paris into 
wild excitement, for the people had resolved in 
their hearts to be free, and to have a constitution 
that would protect them in their freedom. La- 
fayette was a member of this Assembly. 

The Assembly asked the king to withdraw his 
troops from Paris. The king replied by recom- 

• 49 



50 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

mending the Assembly to remove from Paris to 
some city where soldiers would not be needed. 

To do this would be to abandon the cause. 
Now came forward Lafayette. " Make a declara- 
tion of the rights of man," he said, " as a preamble 
to the constitution." 

The Assembly resolved to form a National 
Guard for its own protection, and that of the con- 
stitution which they were forming, and to put at 
its head General Lafayette. It was thus that 
Lafayette was made the defender of the constitu- 
tion of France. The king and court were at this 
time at Versailles. 

The court was at war against the represen- 
tatives of the people. The excitement in Paris 
grew. 

It was the nth of July, 1789. The king still 
controlled the army, and Paris believed itself to be 
threatened with invasion. In the hot afternoon of 
that day a vast crowd assembled at the Palace 
Royal. 

About three o'clock a young man mounted 
a table in the gardens of the Palace and waved 
aloft a pistol. 

"Citizens!" he cried, "the court is preparing 



THE WHITE COCKADE OF THE CONSTITUTION. $1 

for US a St. Bartholomew for patriots. Citizens, to 
arms, to arms ! Let us take the^r^^;^ cockade." 

That man was a young Picardian, Camille 
Desmoulins. The people mounted the green 
ribbon, and those who could not get green ribbons 
stripped the green leaves from the trees and put 
them in their hats. The people were resolved to 
sustain the Assembly ; there should be no surprise 
— ^no St. Bartholomew for liberty. So everywhere 
was seen the green cockade. 

The king's soldiers menaced the people, and day 
by day the excitement grew. The people rushed 
in great bodies to the armories, demanding arms. 
They must arm themselves, for as yet the National 
Guard was not organized. They formed a com- 
mittee, and this committee resolved to form a 
militia of forty thousand men. The colors of 
Paris were blue and red. 

"The militia must wear the colors of Paris," 
said the committee. So the g-reen cockade of the 
night of the nth vanished, and the blue and red 
cockade filled the streets of Paris. The people 
were arming. The committee ordered the con- 
struction of fifty thousand pikes ; they were 
finished within thirty-six hours. The Intendant 



52 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

of Paris had caused the national arms to be hid- 
den in the cellars of the house of the Invalides. 

The sun of the 14th of July rose red and 
warm. 

" On to the Invalides ! " began to cry the 
people, and to the Invalides rushed the heroes of 
the blue and red cockades. They forced open the 
doors, and carried away twenty-two thousand guns. 
The people were now armed. The eventful day 
blazed, and the ardor for liberty grew. 

There was a great prison, in Paris called the 
Bastille. It had been used by a long line of 
kings to overawe the people. The most cruel 
courts had caused their enemies to be sent there 
to rot in dungeons. Wicked men and women, 
favorites of courts, had been able to send there the 
most worthy and noble people. It had been the 
stronghold of injustice, tyranny, and cruelty, for 
centuries. The people had hated it ; all patriotic 
and good hearts had cried out against it ; and now 
at last the tempest clouds of indignation were 
gathering around it. 

" On to the Bastille ! " cried the armed people. 
So the blue and red cockades. The tempest was 
gathering force. 



THE WHITE COCKADE OF THE CONSTITUTION. 53 

They approached the great fortress — the em- 
blem of tyranny — its thick walls and high towers 
frownine over them. The stoutest fortress is 
weak if it have a weak heart. The people 
demanded the surrender of the Bastille. They 
were fired by a long sense of injustice, which as a 
rule ends at last in revolt, and they rushed over 
the drawbridge. The soldiers of the Bastille 'fired 
upon them ; but the sight of blood only added to 
the fury of this new army of liberty. 

The French orarrison within hesitated to fire 
upon their own people, and demanded of the 
Governor the surrender of the fortress. The 
Governor was a tyrant, and all tyrants are 
cowards, and findingf himself beset with enemies 
within the fortress as well as without, he deter- 
mined to destroy the fortress and end his own life. 

He descended to the powder magazine to apply 
the torch to the powder, and thus blow up the fort- 
ress, his own soldiers, and the enemy. There 
were thirty-five casks of powder in the maga- 
zine, and a spark there would have made one 
of the most awful slaughters of history. Sud- 
denly there stepped across his way two French 
guards. 



54 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

" Halt ! " They placed before him two 
bayonets. 

" Capitulate !" 

The governor, with his crimes of years, shrunk 
back. Could the Bastille be so easily taken ? 
Yes, wrong falls easily, at a breeze, when it is 
fully ripe. The terror-stricken man promised to 
capitulate, and was led away. 

The besiegers were victorious. They lowered 
the bridge that led to the fortress. The people 
came pouring into the fortress. What a sight was 
revealed ! What loathsome dungeons ! What 
skeletons of prisoners ! 

They released the prisoners, and as they saw 
what the Bastille was their fury grew. They 
began to tear down the fortress with their own 
hands. They felt their strength and knew that 
the fall of the Bastille was the end of the one 
man power in France. They slew the governor, 
and placed his head on a pike. 

The sunset of the 14th of July was the end of 
the arbitrary French monarchy. The Constitu- 
tion was to rise, defended by the National Guard. 

At midnight a messenger entered the apart- 
ments of the king. 



THE WHITE COCKADE OF THE CONSTITUTION. 55 

" Is it a revolt?" asked the king. 

" Sire, it is a revolution." 

On the 15th of July Paris rang with the shouts 
of ^^Vive la Natioti r' Lafayette was the man of 
Paris. His whole soul was directed toward a con- 
stitution that would give the people their rights 
and privileges. He was elected by acclamation 
general of the Parisian militia, and this army he 
transformed into the National Guard. The great 
Constitution was now made, and the nation rose 
to the defense of the Constitution. The French 
everywhere began to form a national guard, and 
the power passed from the throne into the hands 
of the people. The green cockade had passed 
away. The blue and red cockade had done its 
work. It was time for a new cockade. What 
one ? The white. The color of the banners of 
the Maid of Orleans. Who should give the new 
cockade to liberty ? 

Lafayette ! 

" I bring you," said Lafayette to the new 
government of Paris, and we here use nearly his 
exact words — " I bring you a cockade. It will 
make the round of the world. It will begin an 
institution of civil and religious liberty which will 



56 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

triumph over the old forms of Europe. This in- 
stitution will compel arbitrary governments to 
follow it or to be overthrown. I bring you the 
white cockade." 

The white cockade flew. Paris was white. A 
German who was in Paris vividly describes the 
scene : " I should not know how to express my 
feelings," he said, "when, for the first time, I saw 
the white cockade on the hats and caps of all I 
met — citizens, peasants, children and old men, 
priests and beggars, and when I could read the 
pride upon the joyous foreheads, in the presence 
of men of other countries, I could have wished to 
clasp in my arms the first who presented them- 
selves before me. For as they were no longer 
Frenchmen, and for the moment my companions 
and I were no longer German, I am a man, I said, 
and nothing which concerns humanity is foreign 
to me. So said we all." 

So the white cockade became the star of two 
revolutions and these revolutions were destined to 
change the world. 



CHAPTER X. 

THE DECLARATION OF THE RIGHTS OF MAN. 



! 



|EVOLUTIONS occur in summer; great 
deeds are born of the summer, and 
shortly before the fall of the Bastille on 
the memorable 14th of July, a date eternally to 
be celebrated, there appeared in the National 
Assembly that knight of human freedom, Marquis 
de Lafayette, with the sublime words, *' We 
must make a declaration of the rights of man ! " 
As he had gone to America as a knight, to 
champion liberty in the New World, and had 
there met Jefferson, the author of the Decla- 
ration of Independence, the words thrilled 
France. 

The Assembly had asked the king to remove 
the army from Paris, since it menaced their free- 
dom, and the king had replied that instead of 
removing the soldiers he would appoint another 
city for the meetings of the Assembly. These 
things we have already related. 

57 



58 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

The people were determined to secure their 
freedom at once and forever. The example of 
America rose before them, and they arose above 
themselves. They echoed Lafayette : " We must 
have a declaration of the rights of man." 

The voice of Lafayette rang through France. 
He was awaited as the genius of liberty in the 
Assembly. All eyes were bent upon him as often 
as his tall form arose in that body of human fate. 
He had the spirit but not the pen of Jefferson. 
But the most noble sentiments began to fall from 
his lips after the Bastille fell, and the revolution 
was ripe. The declaration of the RIGHTS OF 
MAN came, and was formally made by the 
Assembly, August 26, 1789. It echoed the 
Declaration of Independence in America, and 
made France free. 

Its opening was grand : 

" In the presence and under the auspices of the 
Supreme Being, we declare, 

" That all men are born to equal rights, and 
remain free in their equity. 

" These rights are liberty, property, and the 
resistance of tyranny. 

" The principle of sovereignty resides in the 



THE DECLARATION OF THE RIGHTS OF MAN. 59 

nation, and no man can exercise authority without 
the people's consent. 

" Law is an expression of the public will." 
So read the beginning of the Declaration of 
the Rights of Man. In that declaration the 
aristocracy of France fell, and the exercise of 
power passed into the hands of the people. 

Lafayette saw that France and the United 
States now stood side by side as constitutional 
powers. He sent the key of the Bastille to Wash- 
ington, and it is still shown to visitors at Mount 
Vernon. His grand work in the great events 
of mankind was now at its height ; he stood on 
the very pinnacle of moral influence, the knight 
of the liberties of two worlds, and France and 
America rang with the shout of "Vive Lafayette! 
Long live Lafayette!" It did not seem then 
that this man would one day be plunged into the 
deepest of human misery ; that these glorious 
days would be to him the dreams of the past in a 
dungeon, and that the world would long seek for 
the hiding place, where he was hidden, in vain. 
But there is no high life that does not spring 
from or go down into the depths. The knight 
of liberty is soon to become the prisoner of 



6o THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

Olmutz, and one true heart of an American Is to 
be the agent to deHver him from the dungeon. 
How did these thinos occur ? 

The mother of Francis K. Huger, the boy 
whom Lafayette met on his landing in America, 
still lived in the Carolinas, and the widow oave 
her life to the development and education of 
her son. The boy was growing up manly and 
noble, with the heroic traits of his father and 
uncles. 

One day, as he had returned on a vacation, the 
same orderly who had brought to the family the 
news of Lafayette's arrival with an army at New- 
port, and of the surrender of Lord Cornwallis at 
Yorktown, again rode up to the grand old plan- 
tation house. The widow and her son came out 
to meet him. 

" It is now as in days before," said the widow, 
" I hope you bring as good news." 

" Yes," said the orderly ; " and it is Lafayette 
again." 

The widow looked down toward that ever to be 
remembered coast where Lafayette, then not 
arrived at the estate of manhood, and Baron de 
Kalb, who gave his life for our country, had made 



THE DECLARATION OF THE RIGHTS OF MAN. 6l 

their vow to achieve liberty for America or to 
perish. 

" Lafayette ? " said the young- man ; " I can 
imagine what it is — he has made France a repub- 
lic like our own ; France has become America." 

" France has made her Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, and the author of that declaration is 
Lafayette. The French call this act of their 
National Assembly the Declaration of the Rights 
of Man. Lafayette has been made the com- 
mander of the National Guard of France, and the 
National Assembly under his leadership is now at 
work upon a constitution." 

" He will repeat in France his work in 
America," said young Huger; "and make him- 
self the hero of two worlds and the Washington of 
France. I wonder if I will ever see him aofain." 

"That is not unlikely, my son," said the 
widow. "You will complete your education 
abroad, and then travel over Europe. It is not 
unlikely that you may then meet Lafayette." 

" Meet him — if I can but see him I shall be 
content. He will be then the most glorious 
man in the world ! " 

" We cannot be sure, my son. The leaders of 




62) THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 



great events sometimes meet with reverses and 
have tlieir dark days. I hope that when you see 
him, should this happen, you will find him as full 
of honors as of glorious deeds. Come in," she 
said to the orderly. 

" No, no. I am on my way. We have twice 
cheered here for Lafayette. Let us cheer again 
in memory of fifteen years ago. What say you, 
Francis, do you remember the white cockade?" 

" I have kept it." 

" You may have occasion to wear it again, some 
day. Lafayette has given the white cockade 
to the army of France." 

" All Americans will wear it again, should he 
ever visit us!" said Huofer. 

" Which I hope he may," said the widow. 

"So say we all," said the orderly. "Three 
cheers for the hero of liberty ! " and saying this, 
he rode away. 

From this pleasant scene In the Carolinas we 
may go back to Paris, and behold Lafayette now 
at the height of his influence and glory. 

The Bastille fell on July 14, 17S9. The Revolu- 
tion had gone on, producing the Constitution. 

On the 14th of July, 1790, occurred one of the 



THE DECLARATION OF THE RIGHTS OF MAN. 63 

grandest festivals of liberty the world has ever 
seen ; all France, as it were, assembled to see the 
king take the oath of allegiance to the Constitu- 
tion, and to dance at night on the ruins of the 
Bastille. It was to be a great day in the life of 
Lafayette. It was probably the happiest day he 
ever saw, except the one when Yorktown fell. 
He himself was to swear fidelity to the Constitu- 
tion into which he had put his heart, in the pres- 
ence of all the people. 

All was in preparation for the grand f^te on the 
14th of July. The Commune of Paris had invited 
representatives from all the people of France to 
be present to conclude with the Parisian deputies 
a treaty of federation. The National Guard had 
filled the country and the National Assembly had 
decreed that this great, popular army should send 
one delegate for each two hundred men. An 
address had been issued to Frenchmen that had 
these stirring words : 

" Ten months have flown since from the con- 
quered walls of the Bastille arose the cry, ' We 
are free!' The anniversary of this event ap- 
proaches ; assemble, and let the shout go up, ' We 
are brothers !'" 



64 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

The proclamation not only aroused all France, 
but excited Europe. 

There was a persecuted Jew in Vienna named 
Malan. He had brooded long over the wrongs of 
his race, and his soul cried out for liberty. He 
was a money changer and he was making a jour- 
ney toward Metz when he heard the news of 
the address of the Commune. The words thrilled 
him. "We are free! We are brothers!" He 
resolved to visit Paris and see the fete. 

Old Malan came on with the French deputation 
from Metz. It was a glorious company, and 
marched sincrincr a sonor that thrilled the air : 

"Ah: 

" (^a ira, 9a ira, (;a ira, 
Celui qui s'eleve, on I'abaissera 
Celui qui s'abissa on I'^Ievera ! " 

The song is not easily translated — the " ^a ira" 
literally means " It will come," or " It is well," but 
in this connection had the force of " Let it cfo on ! " 

"The humble shall be exalted, 
The exalted shall be abased ! " 

Our own Franklin is said to have furnished the 
refrain for this song. He had said in Paris that 




" (Ja ira, 9a ira ! 



THE DECLARATION OF THE RIGHTS OF MAN. 65 

tyrants, if they resisted the people, would one day 
hang from the lamp posts. " It will come — (^a 
tra! 

The old Jew's heart glowed with the sentiment 
of liberty and equality. He sang as lustily as the 
Frenchmen. 

" ^a ira, 9a ira, 9a ira, 
The humble shall be exalted, 
The exalted shall be abased ! " 

As he approached Paris what a scene met his 
eyes ! The world seemed on the move. Every- 
where, like the white rose of France, was seen the 
white cockade. 

The Champs de Mars was a plain near Paris.:* 
The Commune had erected there a high altar of 
liberty, and the people of Paris resolved to widen 
the plain for the celebration of the Bastille's 
fall. 

Many went to work to do this, the rich and the 
poor together, singing as they marched and 
labored, 

*' (^a ira, 9a ira, 9a ira ! " 

The work was begun by fifteen thousand men. 
On the 7th of July it had not been accomplished. 



(i^ THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

The plain must be made a valley and the July sun 

was burning fast, and the 14th was near. 

Three hundred thousand men and women 

rushed to the plain to complete the work. The 

rich and the titled sang, "^a ira"; the poor sang 

with them, 

" Let it go on, let it go on, 
The humble shall be exalted. 
The exalted shall be abased J " 

The plain became a valley and the great altar 
of liberty rose in the sun. On that altar the king, 
compelled by the people, was expected to take 
the oath. 

The enthusiasm grew. The workmen of Paris 
who labored days came to the plain to continue 
their toil by night. The warm nights glowed, and 
under the moon and stars rang but one voice, 

" Let it go on ! let it go on .' " 

The day came. The sky was a blaze of splen- 
dor. The Champs de Mars was ready. France 
had assembled, and the white rose bloomed on 
the heads of the representatives of an army of 
three millions of men. 

The king trembled. He no longer ruled the 



THE DECLARATION OF THE RIGHTS OF MAN. 6/ 

people, but the people ruled him. The assembly 
filled the plain. 

There was an immense procession ; old men 
and children joined it as in the days of Greece. 
Music pealed, flowers were strewn. The great 
Talleyrand, surrounded by two hundred ecclesias- 
tics, in tri-colored girdles, led the religious rites. 

All was glory, expectation, and joy. 

Up the high altar walked the tall form of 
Lafayette, sword in hand. The sword gleamed in 
the sun, and then was laid on the altar. The 
hearts of the people were thrilled and the air was 
rent. 

Then came the poor trembling king to the peo- 
ple, not to the altar, but to the estrade, and said : 

" I, King of the French, swear to uphold the 
Constitution decreed by the National Assembly 
and accepted by me." 

At night France danced on the ruin of the Bas- 
tille, and cried, " We are brothers!" 

Fete followed fete for days and nights. The 
people were delirious with joy. They marched 
everywhere singing, 

" It is well, it is well ! 
^a ira, 9a ira, 9a ira." 



68 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

The Constitution was made ; the king had 
sworn to protect it ; the people were free and 
brothers. 

" The world is upset," said the Jew, " but can 
these things last ? Will the new liberty ever 
reach me and my people ? " 

He did not know. 

He saw Lafayette go up the steps of the altar of 
liberty ; he saw the sword of the great apostle of 
liberty gleam, and drop upon the altar, and he 
went back to Vienna singing, 

"^a ira, 9a ira, ga. ira, 
The humble shall be exalted, 
The exalted shall be abased." 




CHAPTER XI. 

THE BLACK COCKADE. 

|OULD anyone have dreamed previous 
to 1792 that Lafayette, the hero of two 
worlds, would become an exile, a prisoner, 
and suffer long in dungeons? That he would 
need the sympathy of all the people in the 
world, to whom his struggle for human freedom 
had endeared him ? We repeat the question. 
Strange as it may seem, there came to Paris 
and France the day of the black cockade. 

Lafayette was the maker and defender of con- 
stitutional liberty. He had sworn to support the 
constitution of France. 

But the Jacobin clubs became the leading party 

in Paris. They were opposed to every order of 

the nobility, and Lafayette gave up his title of 

marquis and was glad to be known as a plain 

citizen. But these clubs, which largely formed the 

Commune, found the constitution a barrier to their 

wild schemes of the rule of the people. In the so- 
6 69 



yo THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

called revolution of August lo, 1792, the constitu- 
tional throne was overthrown ; the royal family 
were made prisoners, and there was begun the 
awful period of blood in which one faction suc- 
ceeded another in slaughter, called the Reign of 
Terror. The guillotine which ended the lives of 
the king and queen did its work until France 
was sick of blood. 

Lafayette had opposed the rise of the Com- 
mune. As soon as this body had overturned the 
throne and had broken the constitution, the revo- 
lutionists demanded his arrest. He had gone to 
the army that was guarding the frontier. To allow 
himself to be arrested would end his career. He 
resolved to leave the country, to go to Holland, 
and thence sail again for America. On the 19th 
of August, he and some French officers came 
to Rochefort, which was neutral ground, and 
where they expected to be protected by the law 
of nations. They here met a detachment of Aus- 
trian hussars, of the army threatening the frontier. 
Lafayette sent word to the commanding officer, 
that he and his friends had been proscribed by 
France, and were seeking an asylum in a neutral 
territory, and were about to embark for America. 



THE BLACK COCKADE. Jl 

"And who is your leader?" demanded the 
Austrian officer. 

" General Lafayette." 

"Then he is my prisoner." 

" But we are on neutral ground." 

" That matters not. The King of Prussia and 
the Emperor of Austria look upon Lafayette as a 
common enemy of royalty ; the Queen of France 
herself holds him to be an enemy ; and he shall 
never pass out of my lines until I have instruc- 
tions from my superiors. No, no — we have in- 
deed captured a rare bird, and he will be caged." 

" But the law of nations ? " 

"There is no law of nations for such a prisoner 
as Lafayette. That man has shaken the earth, 
and now he, too, may tremble." 

Lafayette was at once arrested, and placed 
under guard. The King of Prussia, violating the 
law of nations, commanded his imprisonment. 
Despotism had now the great leader of human 
freedom In its power. 

But his arrest, in violation of the law of nations, 
was a shock to the world. Petitions for the 
release of Lafayette began to pour in to the 
Prussian court. 



72 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

What was to be done with the constitution 
maker ? 

He must be sent out of the Prussian dominions, 
and he must somewhere be secretly imprisoned, 
where the world could not know where he was, 
and where his friends could not find him. Where 
was there such a place ? Where was there a dun- 
geon that none could find, and whose doors were 
silence ? 

Where ? 




CHAPTER XII. 

" THE DAY OF GLORY HAS ARRIVED ! " 

jRANCIS K. HUGERgrew up a manly 
boy with the culture and refinements of 
the youth of early Southern life. The, 
Huger families of South Carolina had sent their 
sons abroad to be educated, and although his 
father was dead, his mother desired him to receive 
the most liberal education in Europe. So he 
sailed away from his Southern home, consecrated 
to fame by the vow of Lafayette, and the years of 
the closing century found him a traveling student 
in England and on the Continent. 

As he was one day traveling in provincial 
France, on his way to Germany, a strange sight 
met his eye, and a glorious outburst of music fell 
upon his ears. A detachment of French volun- 
teers came marching through the town. The 
streets filled with excited people, and these people 
were led by a woman in white, who at times 

73 



74 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

tossed her hands wildly into the air and cried, 
'' Liber U.f' 

The band ceased playing, and the drums led 
the march. The detachment halted in the public 
square, before the Hotel de Ville. It was a calm, 
sunny day ; a fountain was playing, and the square 
and the balconies were filled with a crowd that 
seemed to grow and grow. 

The soldiers rested. The woman in white, who 
had been leading the people, came and stood upon 
the high steps of the fountain, and lifting her dark 
but heroic face to the sun, and waving her hand 
aloft, cried, '' Lzbertd /" 

A great shout followed. 

"Now!" she cried, waving her hand again. 
" Now, ye sons of France, awake ! The day of 
glory has arrived ! " 

The band started up the same grand song that 
had thrilled the young traveler when he first heard 
the air : 

" Ye sons of Freedom, wake to glory." 

The chorus set the whole town to singing. 
The balconies sang and shouted, the chorus was 
repeated over and over again. 



"THE DAY OF GLORY HAS ARRIVED!" 75 

THE MARSEILLES HYMN. 

Ye sons of Freedom, wake to glory ! 

Hark ! Hark ! what myriads bid you rise ; 
Your children, wives, and grandsires hoary ; 

Behold their tears and hear their cries, 

Behold their tears and hear their cries ! 
Shall hateful tyrants, mischiefs breeding 

With hireling hosts, a ruffian band, 

Affright and desolate the land, 
While peace and liberty lie bleeding? 

Chorus : 

To arms, to arms, ye brave ! 

Th' avenging sword unsheath ! 
March on, march on, all hearts resolved 

On victory or death. 

Now, now, the dangerous storm is rolling, 

Which treacherous kings confederate raise ; 
The dogs of war, let loose, are howling. 

And lo ! our walls and cities blaze ! 
And shall we basely view the ruin, 

While lawless force, with guilty stride. 

Spreads desolation far and wide 

With desolation far and wide. 
With crimes and blood his hands imbruing ? 

Chorus : 

To arms, to arms, ye brave ! 

Th' avenging sword unsheath ! 
March on, march on, all hearts resolved 

On victory or death. 

The detachment contained a company of sol- 
diers from Marseilles. It was the wonderful Mar- 



76 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

sellles Hymn of liberty that the people had been 
singing. It had been composed by a young musi- 
cal soldier, in an hour of inspiration, it is said, as 
he was falling asleep and roused up again, and the 
music indicates this mood. However this legend 
may be, the song was filling and thrilling France. 
It was the war cry of liberty. 

But liberty now was passing the bounds of law, 
and was becoming the enemy to liberty. True 
liberty is the right to do right, not the right to 
follow personal feeling. 

The young traveler listened, and he thought of 
Lafayette. 

He stepped up to an officer who was bedecked 
with stars, tricolors, and cockade, and said : 

" Pardon ! I am a traveler. Where is General 
Lafayette ? " 

" General Lafayette ? " 

" The Marquis de Lafayette." 

" Pardon me. We have done with marqueses 
here. Lafayette is no longer a general. The 
Jacobins have voted him an enemy ; his sol- 
diers have turned Jacobins, and he has gone over 
the border. He is lost ; has disappeared, he 
has been captured, or perhaps, he has gone to 



" THE DAY OF GLORY HAS ARRIVED ! " 7/ 

America. He was a friend of America during the 
wan Are you from Arnerica?" 

"Yes." 

" Did you know Lafayette ?" 

" I once met him when a boy." 

" He led the National Guard in the days of the 
constitution. He defended the constitution, but 
those days are passed. The people rule ; the day 
of glory has arrived ! " 

The soldiers were summoned to form into line. 
The glittering detachment began to move. The 
woman in white again took her place at the head 
of the people. The band struck up again the 
same thrilling air : 

" Ye sons of Freedom, wake to glory ! " 

And so the soldiers, followed by a great crowd 
and led by a band with the woman in white, 
passed out of the town. 

Had France gone mad ? 

Where was Lafayette ? 




CHAPTER XIII. 

THE PATRIOTIC PARROT. 

OW old Malan can live again." So said an 
old Jew, in a little narrow lane near one 
of the grand streets in Vienna. , He had 
gone to live there in the early part of the century, 
this very queer Hungarian Jew, named Malan, 
whom we saw at the fete of the Bastille. He was 
one of the strangest people in Vienna. There is 
usually something wrong about what is strange, 
but there was nothing wrong about Malan. He 
was a money changer, but he was scrupulously 
honest. He was learned, and he had heard that 
there was a man named George Washington who 
had contended for the equal rights of all men in 
the far Western world. He had hoped that some 
such man might rise for the liberation of his own 
scattered race. 

There was a small garden at the back of his 
house, and in it was a lime tree, and there old 
Malan used to sit and talk on summer days. He 

78 



THE PATRIOTIC PARROT. 79 

had a parrot which he had bought at a Mediter- 
ranean port, because it had been brought by a 
ship from the Western world. The bird had a 
blue breast and green wings with red feathers, and 
he loved it because he had heard that another 
patriot from the land from which the bird came, 
by the name of Bolivar, was also contending for 
the same equality that Washington had secured 
for the United States of the West. 

Old Malan had lost his wife, and his children 
had married and gone to live in other countries. 
He had been rich, but he had lost his property by 
a persecution of the Jews in Hungary, and he used 
to speak of himself as one who had been dead. 
When he first lost his property he was very sad. 
A country that could deprive him of his rights 
because of his race was no better to him than a 
tomb. The children used to gather about him 
under the lime tree. 

" Why do you come to see old Malan ? " he 
would say, " Do you not know that he is dead ? " 

"Yes, but you are talking," said one. 

" I am talking as one dead. There will never 
be any life for poor old Malan until the Jews 
have equal rights with mankind. I hear they 



8o THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

have gained such things in the Western world, now. 
If I could go to the West, I would go to heaven." 

" No, old Malan," once said a little girl, "you 
would be in another world, but not in heaven." 

He looked up to the blue patch of sky. 

" I was once rich, children, now look at my 
hands." 

Here he opened his hands. 

" I once thought that I had friends, but no one 
knows who his friends are until he has nothing. 
I once had friends, but where are they now ? 
Where?" 

The children would gather close to him as he 
would talk in this way, for he was benevolent in 
spirit and they loved him. 

Then he would begin to tell them of what he 
had heard of the wonderful country in the West, 
where all the people were free to do right. 

" Children, the old prophets saw that land," he 
would say. " If I were only there, I would own 
the earth, the sky, and the stars. The person 
whose rights are protected has everything. But 
what is the use for me to gain means ? The 
world is against me and it will take it all away." 

He dreamed of the Western world. One day 



THE PATRIOTIC PARROT. . 8 1 

he had traveled down to a port town by the sea, 
where he met an American ship and bought the 
parrot, which he was told had came from Trinidad. 
The parrot spoke many words, as these parrots 
do, and was very affectionate, as the blue front, 
green parrots of South America are. 

Two delightful things that the parrot said were : 

" Hurrah for Washington !" 

"Hurrah for Bolivar!" 

The old Jew took the bird to his garden, and 
the children multiplied under the lime tree on 
summer evenings to .hear it talk. 

" Hurrah for Washington ! " the bird would 
scream. 

" What Washington ? " the old Jew would ask. 

" George," would answer the bird. 

" Hush, that is treason ! " the old Jew would 
answer. 

The Jew and the parrot were the warmest 
friends. The attachment between the lonely old 
man and the excitable bird became so great as to 
be a matter of public curiosity. 

One day a young American traveler came to see 
the bird. The man was delighted to be saluted 
with t 



82 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

"Hurrah for Washingrton !" 

He answered " Hurrah for Lafayette !" 

The bird did not answer, but rushed nervously 
about the cage. 

" Polly wants to come out ! " said the bird. 

" Hurrah for Lafayette ! " said the traveler. 

The bird rushed around the cage, and at last said : 

" Hurrah for Bolivar ! " 

" Here, stranger, sit down," said Malan, "where 
do you come from ? " 

" From America — I am a traveler. It is a 
pleasant thing to hear your parrot cheer for our 
country's hero. Where did it learn these words ? " 

" On an American ship, sailing about the world. 
Your Washington was a great man, I hear ; a 
Pericles, Cincinnatus, Maccabeus. Is it true that 
all men in your country are free ? " 

" Free to do everything that does not harm 
society." 

" Just as though there were no law ? " 

" There is no law in a free country for those 
who do right, my good friend." 

" No, and there never ought to be. Do you 
mean to tell me that Jews in your country have 
their rights like other people ? " 



THE PATRIOTIC PARROT. 83 

" Certainly, my friend ; just the same as other 
people." 

" And is their property safe ? " 

"Just as safe as other people's, I am pleased 
to say." 

" How did you get your rights ?" 

" We made a Declaration of Rights. Lafay- 
ette made a like declaration in France." 

The man looked up to the bird and said, 
" Hurrah for Lafayette ! 

** How old Malan would love to go to your 
country ! But I don't suppose that I ever shall. 
How did that Declaration begin ? " 

The stranger placed his hands behind him, and 
paced to and fro under the lime tree 

" Like this." 

*' Children, you be still, listen." 

'* Hurrah for Washington ! " said the South 
American bird. 

" The Declaration began like this," said the 
traveler, in a voice like a solemn chant : *' * When, 
in the course of human events, 

" ' When, in the course of human events,' " 
repeated the Jew in a Hungarian accent. 

*' ' It becomes necessary for one people to dis- 



84 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

solve the political bands which have connected 
them with another, and to assume, among the 
powers of the earth, the separate and equal 
station to which the laws of nature and of 
nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to 
the opinions of mankind requires that they 
should declare the causes which impel them to 
the separation.' " 

The traveler turned around and looked old 
Malan in the face. The blue-fronted parrot 
peered from its cage, and the children stood with 
open mouths. 

"'We hold,'" quoted the traveler, "'these 
truths to be self-evident.' " 

"What?" asked old Malan. 

" ' We hold these truths to be self-evident, that 
all men are created equal.' " 

"Do I hear my ears?" said the Jew, "that all 
men are created equal ; the old prophets said that. 
Our God told that to Jonah more than two thou- 
sand years ago. ' All men are created equal.' 
Why cannot I go to the West ? But look at my 
hands, my hair, my beard. They are thin, very 
thin. But go on." 

" ' That all men are created equal, and are 



THE PATRIOTIC PARROT. 8$ 

endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable 
rights.' " 

" ' Certain inalienable rights,' " repeated the 
Jew. 

" ' Among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit 
of happiness.' " 

** Stranger ! " 

The Jew rose trembling. His eyes were 
streaming with tears. 

"Stranger — there is a land like that in the 
West ? I am glad that I am alive. Now old 
Malan can live again. And what did you say 
was that general's name that is fighting for the 
same ideas in France?" 

" Lafayette. He is in exile now." 

" Lafayette ! I will remember him. Lafayette ! " 




CHAPTER XIV. 

THE MYSTERIOUS TRAVELER. 

T one of the old inns in Vienna, there 
met, about a century ago, two students, 
and each was a mystery to the other. 
Each spoke English ; one was a German and the 
other an American. The American was Frances 
K. Huger, the boy whom Lafayette met when he 
landed in America. 

People having like sympathies are attracted 
toward each other, even before they know each 
others hearts. We are not sure that they are not 
so attracted even before they meet ; life has sym- 
pathetic atmospheres through which influences 
pass like telegrams, it may be ; and these two stu- 
dents were one in heart, though one had a pur- 
pose he was slow to confess. They were both 
versed in the political condition of America and 
France, and their conversation turned on politics 
as often as they met. 

One serene day they rode together out of the 

86 



THE MYSTERIOUS TRAVELER. 8/ 

city on to the plain toward Wiener Wald. The 
sky was a clear splendor ; the plain was bright 
with flowers, and the mountains stood in somber 
shadow, cool and green. They stopped to rest at 
last under some wayside trees, where they dis- 
cussed the recent dark events in France and the 
so-called Revolution of August loth, by which 
the constitution was overthrown. 

The German student's name was Bollman — Eric 
Bollman. He was a physician and had studied 
under famous teachers. He was an ardent 
republican, and he said to his new American 
friend that day, after an earnest conversation : 

*' I have a secret that I would share with you, if 
I dared." 

"You certainly can trust me, my friend. I 
have never sought anyone's confidence, nor 
been untrue to my own honor or my family 
name." 

" I have carried this secret alone as long as I 
can bear it ; I have for a long time been seeking 
someone to share it with me. My heart tells me 
that you are the man. People may deceive us, 
but our own instincts do not lie to us ; we have an 
inner life that is true to us." 



88 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

" May I ask, whom does the secret concern, my 
friend?" 

" To speak that name would reveal to you 
much. There is a Tiew mystery in the world, as 
deep as that of the Man in the Iron Mask or the 
hiding of King Richard the Lion-hearted in a 
prison on the Danube." 

His horse became restive, and the young stu- 
dent circled round the trees, to bmng the animal 
to a quiet. 

" Richard was confined in an Austrian prison, 
was he not?" said the young American, "and 
Blondel found him by his harp, so the story runs. 
It is as good as a story." 

" There is a prisoner hidden in Austria to-day, 
more noble than was ever Richard the Lion- 
hearted, and a man whose orenius is creatingf a 
new world for mankind." 

" Where is he?" asked the American student. 

" I do not know ; the world does not know." 

" Then you should be a Blondel and find him," 
said the American. 

" Yes, so it would seem ; but I am not sure that 
it is not you who should do this duty tQ a hero of 
heroes, and to mankind." 



THE MYSTERIOUS TRAVELER. 89 

" I ?" 

* 

"Yes, you, my good friend." 

*' I am simply an American traveler, and no 
Blondel. I came to Europe- to finish my educa- 
tion, to see the world, and to return to my own 
country, which, thank God, is free. We have no 
castle prisons for such men there, and all that I 
see here convinces me of the wisdom of the 
government of my own United States of America, 
where every man is free to pursue anything that is 
useful to himself or the world. There is no law 
there for anyone who follows the law of his 
moral being. I am glad, more — I rejoice in my 
heart — that my country is free." 

" To whom, my friend, do you owe your 
liberties?" 

" To the people." 

"Who were your leaders into this new state of 
equality ?" 

"Washington and Lafayette." 

" Lafayette — he has been a hero in both worlds ; 
he made the decisive stroke for the freedom of 
America, and has as nobly defended the con- 
stitutional liberties of France. Did you ever 
meet Lafayette ? " 



go THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

"Yes, my friend, but it was in America, many 
years ago, when I was a boy, scarcely more than 
three years of age. I used to hear about him dur- 
ing the war, and it thrilled my heart when I 
learned that he had landed a second time in our 
country, that time bringing with him an army. 
Washington ordered the officers of the American 
army to wear the white cockade in honor of that 
event. I remember, too, the time when a courier 
came flying toward our plantation house, say- 
ing, * Cornwallis is taken ! ' How my heart beat 
when I first heard the news of the surrender of 
Yorktown ! " 

" Yorktown ? my dear young friend. Who won 
the siege at Yorktown ? " 

"Lafayette, under the direction of Wash- 
ington." 

" It was he, was it, who made your heart thrill 
when a boy?" 

" Yes, I have ever followed his career with 
admiration. Every man has his hero ; he was the 
hero of my boyhood ; after Washington. He is 
so now." 

"He is mine!" 

" He once dandled me on his knee, and I asked 



THE MYSTERIOUS TRAVELER. QI 

him questions that awakened his interest. I was 
a talkative child." 

" That was many years ago ?" 

" Yes, many ; my father was alive then. He 
fell in the war." 

" Is it possible that you knew Lafayette in that 
way? How strange it is that we should meet 
here." 

Dr. Bollman turned his horse and looked back 
on Vienna, gleaming in the sun. He rode 
around the trees again and said 

"Your name is Huger?" 

" Yes, Francis Kinlock Huger." 

" You are from the Carolinas in America ?" 

" I am proud to say that I am." 

"Your family were patriots in the Revo- 
lution?" 

"All of them were." 

" And you knew Lafayette when a boy ? " 

" I did. I only vaguely remember him and 
our curious interview, when I was sitting on his 
knee." 

" You honor his course in life ? " 

" I do ; and I love the man with a patriotic 
love ; not with any romantic or sentimental affec- 



92 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

tion, although we Carolinians are regardful of 
romance and sentiment, but with the love that 
those who sympathize in the same cause feel for 
each other. It is the great love ; It Is higher than 
all loves. I loved him when I first met him as a 
boy and that attraction has never ceased. His 
exploits In America used to thrill me, as an 
orderly or courier brought the news." 

" What would you do for that same hero of 
your heart, if he were In peril ? " 

" You may believe It, or not, but what I say is 
true. I would give all that I have or am to serve 
such a man, whose own service had been that of 
my country and humanity." 

The mountains gleamed afar, and the shadows 
on the plain grew purple and long. The chd- 
teaus with their orchards changed the picture 
that lay behind them in the sinking sun as 
the shadows grew dark, and the young Ameri- 
can said : 

" We must ride back. But you have awakened 
my curiosity, and you should now satisfy it, if you 
trust my honor. You may safely confide In me ; 
there was never a Huger who was untrue to any 
man. You, Indeed, are a mysterious traveler, but 



THE MYSTERIOUS TRAVELER. 93 

I believe you to have an honest purpose. Who is 
the hidden prisoner in Austria of whom you have 
been speaking ? " 

" My friend, this hour surpasses the mysteries 
of fiction ; how did I ever meet you here ? That 
prisoner, that hidden prisoner, sir, is General 
Lafayette ! " 

Hugger reined his horse. 

" Then we must rescue him. How did you 
know that he was a prisoner in this country ! " 

" I will tell you. There is some strange fate 
that is leading us both." 

" There seems to be." 

Young Huger shed tears. 

" America comes back to me," he said, " my old 
Carolinian home ; my father, who was killed in 
the Revolution ; and that summer night when 
there came to our house that strange French 
general. Dr. Bollman, listen ! That very night 
Lafayette and Baron de Kalb swore under the 
moon and stars on the shores near our house that 
they would give their lives and fortunes to the 
cause of American liberty, Dr. Bollman, we are 
two students about the age Lafayette was at that 
time. Let us here make a vow to liberate La- 



94 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

fayette. I pledge my honor before Heaven to 
do this thing." 

The German student lifted his face to the sky. 
" I pledge my honor before God to do this 
thing," he said firmly. 

The two students clasped each other's hands 
and rode back to Vienna in the sunset. 




CHAPTER XV. 

THE STUDENT TRAVELER'S STRANGE STORY. 

HEY had a common secret and purpose 
and they went to the same hotel. 

That night they secured the same 
apartments. They went from their supper to 
their rooms. They sat down together, but they 
did not soon light the lamps. The military 
bands were playing in the distance and the streets 
were deserted and silent. The twinkle of the 
lamps and the watchmen's lanterns only relieved 
the quiet of the darkness. 

"We are alone," said young Huger, "and now 
I wish you to tell me how you came to find out 
where Lafayette was imprisoned. I thought that 
he was merely detained in Prussia." 

" I will tell you all of a strange story. Some 
unknown power, as I said, has seemed to lead me. 
Did you ever meet Lally-Tollendal ? " 

" No." 

" He is a friend of mine. I came to know him 

95 



96 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

in Paris. His hero, too, is Lafayette. One day, 
amid the butcheries of the Commune, he came to 
me and told me that Lafayette had been secretly 
imprisoned and that it was his conviction that as 
I was a traveler I should make it my mission to 
find where he was imprisoned. That I have 
done." 

" How ? How, my dear friend ? " 

" I am a poor student. I went to Hamburg. 
I found that Lafayette had been imprisoned first 
at Luxembourg, and he had been taken in a 
common cart to Wessel on the Rhine. Here he 
had been placed in a cold, damp cell, and had 
fallen sick from neglect and exposure. His hair 
had come off, and his flesh had wasted. He had 
been a pfreat sufferer. Then came to the Kinof of 
Prussia the petitions from England and America 
for his release. They annoyed the king. He 
resolved to send him to a secret prison in Austria, 
for it is the oft-repeated statement among the 
leading courts of the Continent that the 'liberty 
of Lafayette is incompatible with the peace of 
royal governments.' 

" So I learned that he had been sent to a secret 
prison in Austria. I had not the money to go to 



THE STUDENT TRAVELER'S STRANGE STORY. 97 

Austria ; but I was resolved to find the place of 
his imprisonment and I have done so." 
" How did you raise the money ? " 
"A student has one thing — books. I sold 
mine, but they did not bring me in enough for my 
journey. So I intrusted my plan to a rich mer- 
chant ; he favored me and lent me the means of 
going to Austria, as a student traveler." 

" I have means ; my folks are rich planters, and 
I will share my purse with you as far as I can. 
I am nothing to myself now — nothing to myself — 
in this cause." 

" Thank you ; I have less need of money now 
than of the courage of a friend. I am, as you 
know, a medical student, and I have my papers 
to that effect with me. I can easily make the 
acquaintance of the surgeons of the fortresses 
where military and state prisoners are kept. I 
believe that Lafayette is confined in the state 
prison of the Fortress of Olmiitz." 

" Do you know any of the surgeons of that 
fortress ? " 

"Yes, I have been there and met one of 
them. I have letters of introduction which I 
may use to make the acquaintance of medical 



98 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

men at Olmutz, and so, of the surgeons of that 
fortress." 

" I would use them at once." 

"That I have already done. I will tell you 
how I did it. I had this curious plan. I went to 
the surgeon of the fortress, and asked him if he 
would take a pamphlet from me to the state 
prisoner, Lafayette." 

" But you were not sure that Lafayette was 
there?" 

" No, but I knew that if he were not, the 
surgeon would at once show surprise at my 
request and say no such man was there. If he 
said nothing my opinion would be confirmed." 

" I hope that you were successful. Your story 
thrills me." 

" I was. I said to myself, it will be a great 
point gained to find out where Lafayette is. 
France does not know, his own family do not 
know. England and America would again seek 
his release if they knew. Those countries do not 
know at what court to make their appeal. It is 
the plan of these courts that it shall be so. I 
am going to Olmutz to-day. Will you go with 
me?" 



THE STUDENT TRAVELER'S STRANGE STORY. 99 

" If you find where Lafayette is, we must rescue 
him." 

"We will at least make his rescue by England 
and America possible." 

" No nobler patriot ever lived ; others have 
fought for their own country, but he fought for 
humanity. Yes, I will go ; I could not stay ! " 

" True. When the kine of Prussia saw that he 
was holding his prisoner against the moral opinion 
of the world he attempted to bribe him. He sent 
a messenger to say, * If you will unite with us 
against your enemies in France, you shall be 
released.' " 

" And what did Lafayette answer ? I need not 
ask." 

" He was in extreme suffering at the time. He 
was worn with sickness, and lack of food and fire." 

" Yes, but what did he say ? " 

" He said, * Never will I take up arms against 
my countrymen! My name is Lafayette!' 
These last words were his own, as I have 
received the information. * My name is La- 
fayette ! ' " 

" And my name is Francis Kinlock Huger." 

" And mine, Eric Bollman." 



lOO THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

" And mine stands for honor, I hope." 

" And mine." 

"So, all I have, my life and fortune, all, all in 
the name of America, my own free and happy 
America, I offer for the rescue of Lafayette ! This 
is the mystery of my life. How will it end?" 

" Hurrah for WasJmigton ! " 

" What was that ? " 

" It came from the s^arden in the lane." 

" It sounded like a parrot." 

" The Jew has a parrot." 

"What Jew?" 

" The money changer." 

" I imagined that I heard someone in that 
garden say Lafayette^ 

"So did I." 

" It could not be." 




CHAPTER XVI. 

THE SILENT SURGEON. 

ELL me," said young Huger, "this story 
more fully. How came you to know that 
Lafayette was imprisoned at Olmiitz ? 
You said you knew. How is Olmiitz situated?" 

*' It is a strange story. I have told only a part 
of it. But first let me tell you where Olmiitz is. 
It is in the province of Moravia, about a hun- 
dred miles from here. It is a powerful fortress 
and as gloomy as it is powerful. 

" The waters of the Moravia hem it in. The 
walls are of stone, some twelve feet thick. The 
windows are so deep that the sun's rays can sel- 
dom enter them. The cells of the fortress prison 
are not only dark, but damp and cold. The town 
is pleasant, but the fortress is terrible. 

" This fortress is a relic of the barbarism of the 
Middle Ages. Of all the places in Europe it is 
the one where a hidden prisoner of state would be 
the least likely to be found. 



102 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

"I went to Olmutz, as I told you, on the suspi- 
cion that Lafayette might be hidden there. I 
presented myself to the hospital surgeon of the 
fortress. 

"'I am a German traveler, sir,' I said, 'and I 
wish to see the military hospitals of Europe, and 
to study their methods and the experiments that 
are made on the patients.* 

" ' You are welcome, sir,' he said. * I like a 
young student who is alive to these things. A 
medical man cannot have too much knowledge, 
and the hospital is the true school of medical 
science.' 

" ' There is one subject in which I am especially 
interested,' I continued. ' It is the effect which 
imprisonment has upon refined and delicate consti- 
tutions, as of prisoners of state. How it affects 
their hearts, brains, muscles, and blood, their 
digestion and sleep. The inferences from such a 
study are most important. The influence is dif- 
ferent from that of the sick chamber ; or even 
from that of the confinement of the insane.' 

" ' I see you have a very interesting subject in 
hand,' said the suro^eon. 

" ' Very. Since tens of thousands of people in 



THE SILENT SURGEON. IO3 

every country are engaged in occupations that 
confine them to one room. Such a life develops 
peculiar diseases. Melancholia is one of them ; a 
subtile kind of poisoning of the blood from an 
excess of acids may be another.' 

"'Such a life is as great a peril to the mind 
as to the body,' said the surgeon. * Let me tell 
you some of my observations of the effects of a 
sedentary life on prisoners of state. This is a 
secret prison where many of the prisoners are 
shut out from all knowledge of the world. The 
world is dead to them.' 

"'Tell me about some particular prisoners, and 
the effects of this tomb-like solitude on their 
bodies and minds,' said I. We two talked long 
on this most interesting topic. It was night and 
the hour grew late. 

" ' I must go now,' I said. ' I have seldom been 
so much interested in anything as in the narra- 
tives of your experience. By the way, you have a 
French prisoner of state, who used to know some 
of my old friends — General Lafayette.' 

" The surgeon stared, attempted to speak, but 
made no answer. 

" ' His imprisonment must have affected his 



104 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

health and spirits, and I have a pamphlet here that 
contains accounts of his old friends. I am sure 
that it would greatly interest him. Will you hand 
it to him ?' 

" The surgeon stood like a statue. There was a 
puzzled look in his eyes and face that seemed to 
say, ' How do you know these things ? Who has 
told you of them ? ' 

" He at length began to pace to and fro impa- 
tiently. He stopped at times as if to ask a ques- 
tion. But he had well learned the instructions 
commanding silence. So he uttered not a word. 
But that silence had its tongue. No voice could 
be plainer. 

•' ' You may like to read the pamphlet,' said I, 
'and afterward hand it to the general. If you 
do so, you need not mention my name. He does 
not know me. I would like to talk with you at 
some future time on the effect that confinement 
has had on his mind and temperament. He has 
been used to a very active life and much excite- 
ment. Good-night.' 

"The surgeon bowed in a stately way, but did 
not speak a word. And yet he had spoken again, 
and the last silence bore witness to the first." 



THE SILENT SURGEON. I05 

" Lafayette is his prisoner," said Dr. Bollman. 
As he passed out into the still air of the night, 
Huger followed him, but this repeated story did 
not satisfy him. Had his new friend proof of 
these things ? 

As he passed down the street the moon hung 
over the towers. The sentinels were passing to 
and fro, and a great dark clock announced the 
late hour. 

They felt the loneliness of the situation. 
" The end of a high purpose is victory," said 
Huger. 

As they passed along they thought again they 
heard the name of Lafayette spoken in a back 
garden. 

" It cannot be," said the doctor. 

" Three cheers for Washington / " 

" What was that ? " 

" The Jew's parrot." 

" We must call on the Jew," said the doctor. 

" He is an acquaintance of mine," said Hucrer 




CHAPTER XVIL 

THE BAG OF GOLD. 

HILE Huger was living in Vienna he 
used often to meet that curious character, 
Malan, the Jew. The latter could speak 
French well and a little English, and he was com- 
monly known at home as old Money Bags, or 
Malan, the money changer. 

Old and thin, he had the usual long hair and 
beard of his race. But his face was so benevolent 
and winning that the young American was 
attracted to him, and when he wished for direc- 
tions in plans of travel he used to consult him, 
and so came to know him well. 

To Malan, the Jew, the wisdom of life lay in 
proverbs, and he enforced his ordinary talk, even 
in business, with proverbs of his own and many 
lands. 

" I hope I do not trouble you," said young 
Huger one day, as he went up to the Jew's ex- 

io6 



THE BAG OF GOLD. 10/ 

change, which projected from the old house under 

some cool trees. 

" How trouble me, my wanderer?" 

" By asking you so many questions." 

" It makes me not poorer by trying to answer 

them. But he that would seek many things will 

find trouble. You will have trouble some day. 

What we do not see, do not know, does not harm 

us. Herein is wisdom." 

" I have come to ask you if there is any danger 

of my saying openly here that I am an American ? 

Would it be better for me to seek English 

protection ?" 

" No, no ; it is best always for a man to go about 
for just what he is. If he do not, the world is sure 
to find him out. What is the sun for? What 
are one's eyes for ? " 

"But I am told that General Lafayette, who 
fought for our country, has been hidden in some 
prison in these countries, without process of law, 
because his principles were incompatible with 
royal governments." 

" That may be, but you are not a Lafayette. 
The goose does not soar to the sky like an eagle 
and get shot." 



I08 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

" No, I am not a Lafayette or an eagle. But 
I may be suspected of holding the principles of 
Lafayette and of being an eagle." 

" No, no ! " said the Jew ; " the world does not 
mix the birds up in that way. But do you want 
I should tell you what you are thinking about ? 
Old Malan can tell most people what they are 
thinkincf about. Herein is wisdom. Most of the 
people who come here think that I am a Jew, and 
will cheat them. But they are mistaken. He that 
cheats another, cheats himself. I am an honest 
man. So you see they are mistaken. 

" Now would you like to have me tell you what 
you are thinking about ? I can. You are think- 
ing that I am talking in this way to take some 
advantage of you, but I am not. Old MaUn 
would treat you just as though you were old 
Malan. The way to travel in this world is to 
turn to the right and go straight ahead, and you 
will get there ! " 

"Where?" 

" That is what I would like to know myself. 
It is hard to tell where we came from or where we 
are going to, but of this you and I can be sure, 
that it is well with the honest man ; he is on 



THE BAG OF GOLD. IO9 

the right road, and he will always find it better 
farther on," 

Old Malan lifted his thin hands to his head. 
The sun sifted through the lime trees and he 
looked into the open face of the young American. 

" Young man, I am reading you. You come 
from a country that has made the people free. 
The old prophets saw such a country. Never 
hesitate wherever you may be to say that you are 
an American. Why ? Do you ask old Malan 
why ? An American is a brother to all men, and 
all men one day will be free." 

" I am proud of my country." 

** Proud, and well you may be. Young man, I 
love you; old Malan, the Jew, loves you, but per- 
haps you do not care for the love of Malan, the 
Jew. I love you because you come from the land 
where all are free ! Think what my people have 
suffered. You may not like my race, but we 
spring from God, and a Jew is never ashamed to 
say that he is a Jew. We never forget our origin, 
and we are true hearted to our own. The best 
thing In the world is to be true hearted. Herein 
is wisdom." 

Huger turned away convinced of the old man's 



no THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

sincerity. The Jew followed him with his eye, 
his face beaming with a kind of brotherly feeling. 
Presently he called after him : 

" Young traveler from the West ; you, young 
traveler " 

The student stopped. 

" If ever you are in trouble, come to me. Old 
Malan will treat you like his own heart. Old 
Malan wants money, but he does not want yours ; 
he would give you money, but not take, for in 
giving is love. Herein is wisdom. Do not for- 
get me. My heart has never been false to any 
man, and my heart is yours!" 

Huger went up the street slowly, among the 
bright, happy people. His mind was full of La- 
fayette. Would it do to take old Malan, the Jew, 
into the secret ? He would need money to give 
Lafayette, and perhaps more than he could com- 
mand. He went back to his hotel and met Dr. 
Bollman on the steps. 

" Dr. Bollman, I wish to speak with you in my 
room. I have found a man in Vienna that I think 
we can Intrust with our plans." 

The two went to their apartments, when Dr. 
Bollman said : " We have need of further help. 



THE BAG OF GOLD. Ill 

We need a confidant in Vienna. Who is that 
man ? 

" He is a Jew." 

" Never trust a Jew." 

" Dr. Bollman, I cannot agree with you. The 
Jewish heart is true to its own race and to its 
friends. This man's heart is true to all people. 
The principles of universal love, justice, and lib- 
erty came from the Jewish race. Dr. Bollman, 
I do not think as you do." 

"What is this Jew?" 

" A money changer." 

" Never trust a money changer." 

" And why ? It is as honorable an occupation as 
that of a banker. Dr. Bollman, will you go with 
me to-night and call on this Jew ? We will have to 
know how to secure money for this enterprise. It 
will pay you to pass the evening with him, if it be 
only to gather up his proverbs." 

" The Jews are great on quoting proverbs," said 
Dr. Bollman, " but not over careful in following 
them. Yes, I will go. We must, as you say, have 
further help, and Jews, if they are grasping, are 
not treacherous." 

That evening the two students went to Malan's 



112 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

door. He lived in a tall house, with a lonely and 
lofty look ; antique, with shut window blinds and 
unused balconies. A single light illumined a 
shutter in an upper room. 

They knocked and were admitted by a servant, 
and conducted to Malan's room. 

" I have accepted your invitation," said the 
American traveler, " and I have brought with me 
a friend. He is also a student and a traveler." 

" You are welcome," said the Jew. " Young 
people seek old people when they have need of 
them, and when they are seeking direction. 
Solomon said, * O Lord, thou hast given me the 
choice of three things — riches, fame, and wis- 
dom ; give me wisdom, and by It I will get the 
other two.' What brings you here to-night to 
me?" 

" We are alone," said Dr. Bollman, " and my 
friend has told me that you would be a wise friend 
to know." 

"Then It Is wisdom." 

" Yes, we are In need of it." 

The doctor hesitated and asked : " Who Is the 
wisest man In the world ?" 

" He that overcomes the evils of his own nature 



THE BAG OF GOLD. II3 

for the welfare of others. Such a man possesses 
his own self and the world." 

" But that is not the question that brought us 
here." 

" No, that is not the matter that brought you 
here. Do you want that I should tell you of 
what you are thinking? You are dwelling in your 
mind on some mystery in your life." 

" Why do you say this ? Have you hidden 
knowledge ? " 

" Yes, but it is the hidden eye that anyone may 
have. You do not come to me when the exchange 
is open ; nor by day, but in the night, and a young 
student like you does not seek for an interview 
with an old man like me without a reason, and 
whatever an American may feel, a German has 
a race prejudice against a Jew." 

" Why should he ? Did not your race produce 
a Judas Maccabseus ? " 

" True, true," said the Jew, starting. " It is now 
all clear to me. What is the sun for? Shall I 
tell you of what you are thinking ? Would you 
like to hav^ me tell you now?" 

The question startled Bollman. He looked 
around the room. Old faded pictures were there ; 



114 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

Statues stood in the shadows. Here and there 
were carved chairs. 

"Yes," said Dr. Bollman, "tell me of what I am 
thinking." 

" I will first tell you of what you are not think- 
ing. You are not thinking of Judas Maccabaeus, 
otir hero. No, no. You are not thinking of 
himy 

A spinet stood at the side of the room where 
the Jew was sitting. He reached out his long 
arms, waving the sleeves of his dressing gown, and 
began to play, with one hand, Handel's " See, the 
Conquering Hero Comes." He looked into the 
faces of the two students almost absently, and 
said : " They are all gone — wife, children, and all. 
I am all alone, alone. Something new is com- 
ing to me. I can feel it coming. Come, come ! 
Events come, the same as people. Events come, 
the same as strangers. Events come, but they 
come with a purpose. Events have souls." 

He drummed the Handel air from "Judas 
Maccabaeus " again, then leaned forward, and 
peered Into the face of Dr. Bollman : " Now shall 
I tell you of what you are thinking ? " 

" Yes, yes." 



THE BAG OF GOLD. II5 

" You are not thinking of my hero, you are 
thinking oi your hero. Is not that true ? " 

" Yes," said Dr. Bollman. 

" And now, my young friend from the free 
people of the West, where the sun goes down, 
you noble heart from the new land of God, shall 
I tell you of v^hom. you are thinking? " 

" Yes, tell me. This is very strange." 

"And will you answer my questions if I answer 
you rightly ? " 

" Yes ; I can trust you. The spirit in my heart 
says so, and that spirit never lies." 

" My young wanderer from the West, you are 
thinking of yo7cr hero ; and shall I tell you who 
your hero is ? " 

" Yes, yes," said the young man, starting. 

" Well, then ; be still ye walls if ye have ears ! 
Your hero Is Lafayette. Is It not so? You 
promised to answer me." 

"Yes; It Is," said the young traveler. "Yes, it 
is. You already seem to know all." 

" And you come to me for help in regard to his 
liberation ? " 

" How did you know that man and our 
purpose ? " 



Il6 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

" I am no romancer, I am an honest man. You 
spoke that name when you called before, and that 
word 'already' reveals much." 

" My friend," said Bollman, "we have given you 
so much of our secret that we want your promise 
of secrecy, if we will make known to you all that is 
in our hearts." 

" I would know it all soon, whether you told me 
directly or not. It is the slips of speech that is 
true language with those who have something to 
conceal." 

** My friend, we have nothing now to conceal 
from you. I am seeking Lafayette, who is 
hidden in an Austrian prison. That prison is at 
Olmiitz. I have come from there. I wish to 
release him ; to set him free ! " 

" You are not a Frenchman ?" 

" No." 

" You are not seeking money nor fame in this 
purpose?" 

" No ; I have thought of neither." 

" What prompts you ? " 

" Somethinof within." 

" Yes ; the spirit of events. It dwells there." 

" I want your help." 



THE BAG OF GOLD. II/ 

"Of course. You shall have it! Here it is. 



I 



The Jew arose and trimmed the lamp. He 
opened a carved chest and took out of it a small 
but heavy bag. He put the bag on the table 
beside the lamp. He opened the bag, untying 
the string. He took out a gold piece. He laid 
down a heavy gold coin. 

" There," said he, " he who gives to what bene- 
fits all men, enriches his own soul, and that soul 
is the richest of all that gives away everything. 
He who denies himself the most, receives the most 
from God. We shall all be dust soon, and it is 
only the gold of the soul that will pass in infinity." 

He took out of the bag another heavy gold 
coin. "There," said he, "when you find La- 
fayette, he will need money. Give him that. 
Tell him that it came from Malan, the Jew. No, 
no ; stop. Why should I want my name to go 
with it ? That is selfishness. Yes, yes," he con- 
tinued, "you may say Malan the Jew sent it. 
Malan is but a name, but I owe it to my own that 
you should say a Jew sent it." 

He looked into the bag. 

" It was Lafayette who said, 'All men are born 
9 



Il8 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

free and have the right of their birth.' That 
means a Jew." 

He took another coin out of the bag. 

" There, if you ever find Lafayette, he will 
need much money. Give him that too. Tell him 
the Jew sent it. 

He put down another heavy gold coin beside 
the baof. 

"He said, Lafayette did, that liberty, equality, 
and safety were rights of all men." 

He took from the bag another coin and placed 
it on the table as before. " There, If you ever 
find Lafayette, give him that too. He will need 
money. Tell him the Jew sent it. 

" He said, too, Lafayette did, that no man can 
be accused, arrested, or Imprisoned, save by just 
processes of law. An admirable man Is that 
same Lafayette. When you see him, give him 
thatr 

He took from the bag another coin. 

" He said, the same Lafayette did, that every 
man should be regarded as innocent until proven 
guilty. You may give him thaty 

The coins were becoming a pile. 

" He said, that same noble man, that no person 




" Here it is, all of it." 



THE BAG OF GOLD. II9 

should be disturbed on account of his relip-ious 
opinions. Oh, oh, here it is, all of it." 

He poured out the remaining coins on the table. 

" Here, let me gather them all up into the bag. 
Take 'the bag, gold and all. I could not die con- 
tent unless I did Here, here, if ever you find 

Lafayette, give him this bag of gold, and it 
matters not who sent it. Humanity is all one 
man, and we are children of the same father. 
I am no stranger to the secret of your Gospel, 
even if I am a Jew. It is ' He that saveth his 
own life shall lose it ' ; one must lose in order to 
gain, and fall in order to rise, and be broken in 
order to be made whole. Young travelers, you 
will find Lafayette. I read it in my soul. 
There is hidden light there. You will find him." 

He gave the bag of gold to young Huger. 
Would that bag ever find Lafayette? 



I 



CHAPTER XVIIL 

THE LIME JUICE LETTER. 

HE young travelers set out for Olmutz. 
Dr. BoUman had entrusted to youngr 
Huger another strange secret as they 
proceeded on their way. 

" Are you sure that Lafayette is at Olmutz ? " 
said the American, as they rode along. He had 
an impression that his companion had not told 
him all. 

" Yes, sure." 

" Then you have not told me all ? " 

" No, but I will do so now." 

" Pray tell me without a moment's delay. Have 
you indeed found Lafayette ? " 

" I am glad to see that your whole soul is in the 
question ; you will need it — you will need it." 

" If you have found Lafayette, I shall hence- 
forth believe in special Providence and in destiny. 
What is your proof ? " 



THE LIME JUICE LETTER. 121 

"/ have found Lafayette, but that may mean 
struggle for you." 

" No matter what it means to me. The heavens 
are true. If you had not found him, my faith 
might fall from the sky. 

" He is in the dungeon of the Fortress of 
Olmiitz." 

" Are you sure ? Who told you so ? " 

" The hospital surgeon." 

" What did he say ? " 

" He said nothing, as I told you before. I said 
to him that Lafayette was a prisoner there, and 
that I would deem it a favor if he would eive him 
a pamphlet that contained some notices of two of 
his friends. He took the pamphlet, as I told you, 
and said nothing-," 

" How did he look?" 

" His looks told me as much as his tongue could 
have spoken ; as I said, looks speak." 

" If he would take a pamphlet to Lafayette, 
he would take a letter." 

" Yes, my good friend, and I prepared one for 
him. Here is the answer." 

" I see. But why did you not tell me this 
before ? " 



122 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

" I wrote a letter to Lafayette with lime juice, 
or invisible ink. When he took it to the fire the 
writing appeared." 

" Yes, but how did you send it ?" 

" By the surgeon." 

" But he would suspect a blank piece of paper." 

" I had my plan. I wrote the letter in lime 
juice and took the paper to the surgeon, and in 
his presence wrote over it a letter in ink, and 
asked him to take it to Lafayette." 

" But how did Lafayette know that the paper 
contained a writing in invisible ink?" 

" That is what I wish you to guess." 

" You must have suggested it to Lafayette in 
the ink letter." 

" That would be a delicate matter indeed, but 
that is what I did. I wrote to him this : ' I am 
glad of the opportunity of addressing you these 
words, which, when read with the usual warmth, 
will afford your heart some consolation.' " These 
were the very words that Bollman wrote, literally 
translated. 

" The next day I met the amiable surgeon. 
*/ gave the pamphlet to Lafayette^ he said, 
' and he seemed to be much pleased, and wished 



THE LIME JUICE LETTER. I23 

to know more about one of the friends named 
in it.'" 

They traversed a beautiful country of flax and 
hemp, shadowed in the distance by the Carpathian 
hills, and would have been charmed with the 
sunny valleys had not their daring purpose filled 
their souls. 

" Your hint to Lafayette, in the words * if you 
read it with your usual warmth,' seems to me to 
have been a very slight one on reflection," said 
Mr. Huger. 

" How could you have been bolder and not 
excited suspicion ? " asked his companion. " La- 
fayette has a very quick mind, and he had re- 
ceived such secret messages before. His very first 
impulse would be to look for more than appeared 
on the surface of any letter on political events." 

"You are right. He has been trained in that 
way," said Mr. Huger. " What did you write 
him in acid ?" 

" I merely asked him how his friends in Olmiitz 
could see him secretly. There was no treason in 
that." 

" No ; but the meaning would be clear to 
a mind like his." 



124 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

" Of course it would. As clear as the song of 
Blondel, which Richard helped the Troubadour 
himself to write. If this plan should succeed, 
it would be the story of Blondel over again." 

" Only this story would be true. We are 
engaged in no poetry, music, or romance. We 
may have to pay the forfeit of what we are about 
to attempt with our lives. What if we should 
fail?" 

" We may fail, but we will tell the civilized 
world where Lafayette is imprisoned, contrary 
to the law of nations. Whatever may become of 
us, that alone would be success. Austria cannot 
hold Lafayette when this fact is known." 

" There are two things that impress me in what 
we are attempting. We are doing an unselfish 
thing, but we are acting under the laws of the 
compensations of character. You never saw La- 
fayette. You have nothing to gain by his 
release. Why are you doing what you are ? " 

" Because a perfectly unselfish character draws 
to itself equally unselfish assistance in the time of 
trouble. If friends do not help an unselfish man, 
strangers will. Help is sure to come. There are 
secret laws of compensation that are his friends, 



THE LIME JUICE LETTER. 125 

like angels in disguise. This thought gives me 
faith in God and humanity. If we succeed, what 
we do will be like a revelation to me. I shall 
have a vision of God in his laws. And what is 
the other thing that impresses you ? " 

"It is the possibility that I, who was almost 
the first to meet Lafayette when I was a child, 
should now be imperiling my life to do for him 
what he did for America. Was my life appointed 
to this end ? " 

** I do not know." 

" I feel as though an invisible captain was 
leading me. Whither? No matter. It is duty. 
He who does right follows an invisible leader and 
marches with unseen hosts. I have faith, faith, 
faith ! Right-doing is the march of God." 

After a journey amid the sunny valleys, they 
came to Olmutz, whose gloomy castle shadowed 
the sunrise and sunset air. It was a quiet town 
now. The army of the Hapsburgs were in other 
fields, far from the gloomy grandeur of the walled 
solitude of the Moravia. 




CHAPTER XIX. 

IN THE INK OF LIFE. 

[iOON after his arrival in Olmutz, Dr. 
Bollman called on the suroreon of the 
military fortress, to resume his discussion 
of the effects of confinement upon prisoners of 
state. 

"How is the health of Lafayette?" he asked, 
after a long discussion. 

" Long imprisonment has told upon him. It 
has lost him his hair and shrunk his muscles ; he 
can be now but the shadow of the man he was." 

" Is he allowed any exercise?" 

"A little — under o-uard." 

The surgeon arose, and took down a pamphlet 
from a shelf and said : 

" Lafayette wished me to return to you this 
pamphlet with his thanks. It has seemed to exer- 
cise a very hopeful influence upon him. I have 

never seen him so cheerful as he has been since 

126 



IN THE INK OF LIFE. 12/ 

reading it ; in his long imprisonment he has been 
much deprived of the knowledge of the world. 
" Is he much restricted here ?" 
" Yes, yes. When he entered here, he was told 
that he would not be allowed any communication 
with the outside world ; that his friends should 
never know where he was, and that he would never 
be allowed to leave this place." 

" What was the excuse for such severity ? " 
"That the freedom of Lafayette was incom- 
patible with the peace of the royal governments of 
Europe ; that he was a common enemy of mon- 
archy, and should be so treated by the royal 
powers. For a long time after he came here 
he had only scanty food, and was allowed few 
resources but his own reflections. 

" I have seen him standing in his damp cell, peer- 
ing into the sky, whose changes of light and shade 
were all that he could see. Occasionally a bird 
flew by. Sometimes a cloud passed with the glow 
of the sun, which must have looked to him like a 
heavenly chariot, A bird sometimes came to the 
bars of the window. When once its song reached 
him, it must have seemed to tell him of the free- 
dom of a lost world. He has been less restricted 



128 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

of late. The interest of America and England in 
his welfare has led to his being treated more like 
a prisoner of state. 

" I have done all I could to make his condition 
better and happier, else I should not have taken 
to him that pamphlet. I have recommended that 
he be allowed to go out under guard, and it has 
been so ordered. He sometimes is allowed to 
ride over the bridges and outside the town into 
the open country." 

Dr. Bollman put the pamphlet into his pocket, 
and returned to the hotel and went to his room. 
There he was immediately joined by Huger, who 
had been impatiently waiting his return. 

"What has happened?" asked the American 
student. 

" I cannot tell you yet, till I have examined this 
pamphlet." 

"What pamphlet?" 

" The one I sent to Lafayette." 

" Has he returned it to you ?" 

" He has." 

" Then it contains invisible writing. Let us 
examine it." 

" But how could Lafayette obtain invisible ink ?" 



IN THE INK OF LIFE. I29 

"Acid — lime juice." 

" He would not be likely to be allowed such a 
thing in his cell." 

" If he took the meaning of the usual warmth, 
the pamphlet somehow and somewhere will com- 
municate to us the fact." 

" Look." 

The two turned the leaves of the pamphlet, 
holding them before a strong light. 

" I see something there," said the young 
American. 

"So do I." 

" It is not written with invisible ink. It is pale 
printing, as though it was part of the original 
tablet." 

" Like brick dust." 

" No, it is not that ; it is blood." Read " 

''My health is poory 

" That means nothinor. There it is ap"ain. 

o o 

Read " 



'' I am allowed to ride out into the forest, under 
guards 

"That means much," said Dr. Bollman. "It 
means that he has read aright my message. Read 
it with the usual warmth'' 



130 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

" It means that he may cross the bridge to the 
wood," said Huger. 

" It means that his friends must have force to 
rescue him," said Dr. Bollman. '"Under guard,' 
that means much." 

" We cannot secure force." 

"We can use wit — invention. Remember that 
the Bastille fell." 

" We must secure lodgings in the wood." 

"And trusty servants." 

" And horses." 

" I have not the means to procure all we need 
for such an exploit as this promises to be," said 
Dr. Bollman. 

" But I have — and for the sake of America, you 
have everything I can command. For the sake of 
Washington — all. For the sake of Yorktown — 
all. For the sake of Lafayette, for the heart of 
Lafayette, which is the heart of libert)', destiny 
may do with me what it will — he loved others bet- 
ter than himself, and I will love him more than 
myself. I have never been so moved before. I 
have never felt like this before. Such an exaltation 
as possesses me is glory." 

" You have, indeed, caught the spirit of your 



IN THE INK OF LIFE. I3I 

hero. One light kindles a thousand. You are 
probably the only man in the world who, at this 
crisis, could feel all that you feel. We live in 
spheres of sympathy in this world, and there 
are a thousand worlds in one. The patriotic 
have a sphere of their own ; they are a noble 
part of the world." 

"And those- who struofsfle for the welfare of all 
mankind, as has Lafayette, possess the hearts of 
all true people in the world. Patriotism is good, 
but the good of mankind is more than any one 
country, or any single family of nations. My 
heart says for America, ' Long live Lafayette ! ' 
and for France, * Vive la Lafayette ! ' and for the 
world and immortality, ' Onward, O Lafayette, to 
justice, liberty, and peace ! ' " 

Their windows looked on the bridges. It was 
the cominor on of a still, beautiful evenine. Afar 
the country lay glimmering in the sunset light. 

" There is no time to lose," said Dr. Bollman. 
" Let us seek an inn near the wood, on this very 
evening, before the gates close." 

They went out together. The fortress dark- 
ened behind them. They took lodgings near the 
town, and began to inquire for servants and horses 



132 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

to attend them as travelers. A groom and two 
horses were procured. 

" Do the officers of the fortress often ride out 
this way ?" they asked the groom. 

" Yes, often, and the prisoners of state, under 
guard." 

" Have you here any notable prisoners of state"?" 

** I suppose so. We would not know them if 
there were." 

" How do such people ride ?" 

" Usually in open carriages with an armed 
soldier behind them. So I have seen them." 

The two students soon made a friend of the 
groom. They found that he could be intrusted 
with their plan, and they made him a confidant of 
it. They would now have three men against three 
men, and two swift horses. 

Their plan was to wait for Lafayette's carriage, 
to rush out and disarm the guard, frighten the 
driver, mount Lafayette on the swiftest horse, 
and point out to him the nearest road to the 
frontier, while they, too, should mount the other 
horse and reach the frontier by some other way, 
so that suspicion might not be aroused. 

It was a daring, hazardous plan. But an awak- 



IN THE INK OF LIFE. 1 33 

ened spirit, fired by an overwhelming motive, does 
not hesitate. Events march through life toward 
the heiirht. 

Strange, indeed, must have been the feelings of 
Francis K. Huger in the woods of Olmutz. He 
had a mother in America, and his thoughts must 
have turned toward her. She was a noble 
woman, and must also have felt that her spirit 
would approve what he was doing and all that he 
was imperiling. 

He was a true Southerner, and amid the 
grandeur of the old world his heart was still in 
the Carolinas. The old plantation house by the 
sea was his home. At Charleston his father had 
fallen ; was he about to honor his State, and its 
lovely capital, by this exploit in the shadows of the 
Carpathians and under the Austrian sky? 

What matter what followed ? He must be that 
which he had ought to be. We all must be, or be 
nothing. 



CHAPTER XX. 



PERILOUS. 




!T the close of a crlowinof November after- 
noon, while yet the sky was a living 
splendor, an open carriage passed out 
one of the gates of Olmiitz, taking the road 
toward the open country and the wood. On it 
were the driver and two soldiers, and in it was a 
worn prisoner of state, once Marquis, but now 
Citizen Lafayette. 

It was the hour of riding, and carriages were 
returning toward the gay city. The sunset 
brightened, and the air was still. 

Soon two horsemen appeared on horseback, fol- 
lowing the carriage at a distance. They excited 
no suspicion, for it was a common thing for 
people, and especially for visitors and travelers, to 
ride on horseback into the open country at that 
hour of the day. 

The carriage went on for some miles, amid the 
lovely landscapes of rural homes and gardens. 

134 



PERILOUS. 1,5 

The two horsemen followed in the dusty distance, 
now nearer, now farther away, but never out of 
sight of the prisoner of state. 

The two horsemen were Dr. Eric Bollman and 
Francis K. Huger. They were engaged in an 
earnest conversation as they rode along. The 
heart of each was bounding with excitement. 
They had sent forward a relay of horses to a 
public house on the road that led to the confines 
of Silesia, which were near to Austria, but outside 
of the emperor's jurisdiction. 

" Our plan is as perfect as we could have made 
it," said Bollman, " and thus far it is working well. 
I influenced the surgeon to prevail upon the 
governor to let Lafayette have exercise under 
guard. My thought has been carried out. I in- 
fluenced Old Malan the Jew, and I have his purse. 
That argues success, a Jew's purse, and a purse for 
Lafayette, whom that Jew never saw." 

"I have offered you all that I have," said 
Huger, wishing to add a good augury to these 
seemingly fortunate circumstances. 

" Yes, and who in all the world could I have 
secured that would have brought a heart like 
yours to the cause ?" 



136 TIIK KNICHT OF l.IHilRTY. 

" Any true American would have done it," said 
the student traveler. 

" But few Americans would have been able to 
do it," said Bollman. 

"It does look as thoui^h fate was with us. An 
hour will tell." 

The two horsemen carried pistols, but the 
weapons were not loaded. They did not intend 
to take life. 

Their plan followed the suggestion of Lafay- 
ette, written in blood. They expected to see the 
carriage stop, and Lafayette dismount, and walk 
along the way ; then to rush up to him, to mount 
him on their swiftest horse, to put into his hand 
the bag of gold that had been given them by 
Malan the Jew ; to tell him to ride like the wind 
toward Silesia; that he would fuid a relay of 
horses awaiting on the way, and that they would 
join him beyond the frontier. 

They were not disappointed in the beginning of 
the unfolding of their plan. Several miles were 
passed, when the carriage of Lafayette stopped. 
It was before a wood. 

" An advantageous place, that," said Dr. 
Bollman. 



PERILOUS. 137 

"He is alighting," said Hugcr. "Just as I 
have seen it, as it were in a dream." 

" Now is our time," said Dr. Bolhnan. 

They spurred their horses. 

"In an hour from now Lafayette will be free, 
or we will be prisoners, or dead." 

Lafayette had descended from the carriage and 
was walking along beside it, but slowly falling 
behind it. 

The sunset light was gleaming over the dark 
wood. There were few passers in the way. 

" I have only one concern about what may 
happen," said Huger, "it is about my widowed 
mother. She is a soldier's widow." 

"And you are the son of a soldier. See, he is 
as far behind the carriage as the guard will allow 
him to be. This is our opportunity. Spurs ! " 

The two horsemen flew forward, and met 
Lafayette at the border of the wood. 

"You are Lafayette?" said Bollnian. 

" Yes, Lafayette, and you my friends. What 
is done, must be done at once." 

"The world is seeking you, and we are its mes- 
sengers. Mount my horse and fly to Silesia," 
said Bollman. " Halfway between here and 



138 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

Silesia you will meet our groom with a relay of 
horses ; then you will be safe. God ride with 
you ! Fly ! You will need money," he^ added. 
" Here is a bag of gold. It comes from Malan, a 
Jew in Vienna." 

Lafayette attempted to leap upon the horse 
when the guard came running up with a drawn 
sword. 

"Halt! Disarm !" cried Dr. Bollman. 

A struggle ensued, when Lafayette was 
wounded. But he mounted the horse and swiftly 
rode away under the cover of the wood. 

Friendly night was coming on. But Lafayette 
was a stranger in the place. Which was the road 
to Silesia ? Which was the road where the groom 
and relay of horses were awaiting him ? 

And now comes the most noble act of young 
Huger's life. The two had intended to escape on 
the one horse left, which was heavy, but Lafay- 
ette had mounted the heavy horse instead of the 
light one intended for him. 

" That horse cannot carry us both," said 
Huger. " Lafayette needs you ; take the horse 
and flee after him, and leave me to my fate." 
These were nearly his own words. 




The altcmpted rescue of I^afayette. 



PERILOUS. 139 

Dr. Bollman hesitated. 

" He will be likely to go wrong unless you ride 
after him. Go ! I will hide in the wood. For- 
get me ! Go ! whatever happens to me, go ! " 

Dr. Bollman mounted the horse and rode after 
Lafayette, but, alas, the prisoner of Olmutz had 
already taken the wrong way. 

Francis Huger was left alone in the wood. He 
hoped for safety under cover of the night, but 
the nightfall was slow. He was all alone, and 
capture seemed certain, and that death. 

Presently he heard the great bells of Olmutz 
clanging, and the signal guns firing. He thought 
that the guard had returned, and troops of the 
fortress would soon be flying down the road. 

He was right. The dragoons came flying out 
of the city, sounding the alarm, and calling on 
the peasants to follow them. In an hour the 
country was aroused. Men and women were 
searching everywhere for Lafayette and his 
would-be rescuers. 

Lafayette, who had taken the wrong road, was 
overtaken and arrested that November evening-. 
He was carried back to the fortress and put in 
irons. He was deprived of every comfort of 



140 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

life ; his wound was painful. A chain was put 
around his body in such a way that he could 
scarcely turn over in bed. He was allowed no 
light, no linen, no word of information from his 
friends. He was, as it were, buried alive. It 
was strange that he survived this living tomb. 

Dr. Bollman was also captured, cast into 
prison, and his life made a torture while he 
awaited his trial. 

The peasants had discovered young Huger in 
the wood early in the evening, and they followed 
him. He was hounded like a stag. He was com- 
pelled to surrender, and was taken back to 
Olmiitz in the shadow of the night, and put into 
a separate prison in the charge of a merciless 
keeper. 

Deserted by all mankind he passed the hours 
of his solitary existence. What was the fate of 
Lafayette ? He could not know. Of Bollman ? 
He could ask no questions. 

He had one request that he made of the jailor. 

" May I send word to my mother in America 
that I am alive ? " 

"Silence!" 

A dead silence fell upon him. The world as it 



rERiT.ous. 141 

were vanished away. For him there was neither 
sun, moon, nor stars. The rattle of the jailor's 
keys, and the coming and departure of merciless 
feet, were all the sounds that broke the chill 
winter days. He was at last brought to trial, 
and emerged into the winter light. Bollman was 
tried with him. 

Great events were happening in the world. 
Napoleon was the master of France, and he had 
conquered Italy and humiliated Austria. The 
politics of the world were changing, and Austria 
and Prussia now trembled before France. There 
was a ray of hope for the three prisoners in these 
events. 

The widow in her South Carolina home ceased 
to receive letters from her boy. Had he been 
waylaid ? Was he dead ? 

The waves moaned on the shore, and in sun- 
light, moonlight, and starlight, she often turned 
her eyes thither, and thought of her boy — and 
perhaps of the midnight consecration of Lafayette. 

The immediate attempt to rescue Lafayette 
failed. Hope must for the moment have died in 
the two students* hearts. But had it failed ? No ! 
The world was to learn by these unhappy events 



142 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

where Lafayette was, and the young students' 
efforts were to be the Inspiration that led the heart 
of mankind to set free the Knight of Liberty. 
The tyranny of tyrants had been discovered, and 
Austria was to shrink from the responsibihty of 
her unlawful deeds. Right efforts do not fail. 
Nothing that is right fails. Dungeons stay, but 
they do not prevent the course of events. Men 
suffer, they sometimes perish for a noble cause ; 
but the cause wins, and he whose soul loves the 
cause more than himself has in him the conscious- 
ness of victory. 

The bells of two worlds were yet to ring for 
Lafayette ; and as for Francis K. Huger, if we 
were writing a fairy tale we could hardly fancy 
for him a more happy destiny than was to follow 
these strange events. 




CHAPTER XXI. 

THE SECRET WAS OUT. 

HE city of Olmutz, the garrison, and the 
country around, now knew that the pris- 
oner who had been rescued, escaped, and 
been recaptured was none other than the illus- 
trious Lafayette. The news flew to England, 
France, and America. 

Mme. Lafayette had been a prisoner in the 
south of France. Most of her near relatives and 
friends had fallen under the guillotine ; the estates 
of Lafayette had been for the time confiscated, 
and this true wife and mother had suffered all the 
distresses of the times of the Black Cockade. 

But emerging from prison to see again the 
light of the sun, and to breathe the fresh air of the 
fields, there came to her the thrilling news that 
the prison of Lafayette had been found. 

Her health was broken and her strength wasted 
by imprisonment. But she could say, " This is 
the news for which I have been praying in lonely 

143 



144 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

places and solitary hours. I will go to the court 
of Austria and plead for my husband, and, if I 
cannot gain his release, I will beg to share his 
prison with him." 

Such, in substance, was the declaration of this 
most heroic woman. With her two daughters, 
she traveled to Vienna and gained an audience 
with the emperor, Francis I. The emperor 
received her coldly. He did not wish to grant 
her requests, but public opinion compelled him to 
consider the petition of this helpless woman. To 
her pleading she received this hard and final 
answer from a state minister : 

" You may visit your husband at Olmiitz, but 
you must carry nothing to him and never expect 
to leave the prison alive." 

She heard the decision with a lofty spirit. 

" Do you accept the permission under these 
conditions?" asked the minister. 

" I do." 

Such was the wife of Lafayette. 

One day the cell of the hero was opened, and 
cries of joy rent the damp and dismal air. Before 
Lafayette stood his wife, from whom he had not 
heard for three years, and his daughters whom he 



THE SECRET WAS OUT. I45 

would hardly have known had they not come with 
their mother. 

" My wife, my dear wife, what has brought you 
here ? " 

" My heart and my prayers," she might have 
answered. But she told him she had come to 
share his prison and his fate. Says a friend of 
Lafayette : " That meeting cannot be imagined or 
described ; the prison wall rang with a joy that 
had never been heard there before." 

The two daughters, one aged sixteen and one 
aged thirteen, were placed in separate cells. 
They had committed no crime, but such was 
despotism. 

Mme. Lafayette, after a year's imprisonment, 
grew so feeble in health that it was thought that 
she must be released or soon die. 

She petitioned for the temporary release of 
herself and daughters, and waited an answer. It 
came : 

"You may be released, but on the condition 
that you shall never see your husband again." 

"Go," said Lafayette, "go for the sake of 
your health and your children. Do not think of 
me. Go ! " 



146 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

"My dear husband, I would rather^ die with 
you here in prison than to live in our beautiful 
country of Lagrange without you." 

But Napoleon, who had conquered Italy, now 
dictated terms of treaty to humiliate Austria. 
One of these terms was that Austria should set 
free all the state prisoners of France. Lafayette 
was among the number, and he went forth again 
into the great world of the sun and flowers, 
taking the faithful hearts of his family with him. 

And Huger and Bollman ? Long before this 
the influence of the political changes in Europe 
had caused them to be set free. 

Dr. Bollman became an eminent physician, but 
he never saw Lafayette again after the scene of 
the encounter in the wood. But Mme. Lafayette 
wrote him a most affecting letter, a part of which 
I quote. Some of my readers will like to read it. 

LETTER FROM MME. LAFAYETTE TO DR. BOLLMAN. 

" Olmutz, May 22, 1796. 
" I am at last enabled to write to you, and to 
express to you all the sentiments with which we 
are so deeply affected. The first wish of my heart 
is to assure you of our gratitude. I am likewise 
eager to express my regret for having been unable 



THE SECRET WAS OUT. I47 

to address you sooner. In the prisons of Paris 
I had been informed of your generous under- 
taking, and I was aware that you and M. Huger 
were in custody ; but we had been, and were still 
in France, exposed to such tyrannical oppression — 
such efforts were made to annihilate the recol- 
lection of one whose principles and whose exam- 
ple brought to mind the duty of resistance to that 
oppression, and terror had so completely paralyzed 
every heart, that it was impossible, especially in 
my personal position, to obtain many details 
respecting M. Lafayette and yourself. Besides, 
I was myself overwhelmed by the most appalling 
calamities that can be inflicted on the heart of 
a daughter and a sister, and I felt the necessity of 
coming to this place, in order to regain a portion 
of my faculties and to recover my strength. 

" I at length obtained a passport for the United 
States, and an American vessel conveyed me to 
Hamburg, whence I ought to have written to 
you ; but as I had received in that city only an 
imperfect account of all that referred to you : as 
I was, moreover, persuaded by what I heard at 
Vienna that I could easily correspond from this 
place, and, as I confess that myself and my 
daughters were completely taken up with the idea 
of arriving here, we thought that the expression 
of our sensibility would be more agreeable to you 



148 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

in the name of all four ; and you may easily 
imagine that, from the first moment of our 
meeting, we had to satisfy the eager impatience 
of M. Lafayette to hear of you. From him we 
learned, with intense interest and admiration, all 
the circumstances which we had previously known 
but in part. We were informed of all that you 
had done in Russia ; we were aware of the time, 
the efforts, and the address, which it must have 
cost you at Olmutz to correspond with him ; we 
were apprised of your courageous attempt, but we 
were ignorant of the generosity with which you 
adopted Lafayette's idea, and the zeal with which 
you facilitated his flight, when every mode of 
servincf him at Vienna was exhausted. It is 
impossible for me to describe to you how much 
we were affected by all the details of that day, on 
which you and M. Huger displayed such intre- 
pidity, such delicacy, such indifference to your 
own personal safety, and such undivided devotion 
to the idea of saving the man who spoke to us of 
your efforts with such well-merited enthusiasm. 
He would fain himself explain to you how, after 
stopping on the road, in spite of what you had 
told him, to see you on horseback ; obliged after- 
ward to walk, because the blood and filth with 
which he was covered attracted attention ; having 
stopped again, and even, in his uneasiness for 



THE SECRET WAS OUT. I49 

both of you, having for a moment retraced his 
steps, he was forced to return to Sternberg ; and 
how, having reason to believe that you had pro- 
ceeded across the fields, he endeavored to over- 
take you before your arrival in that place, al- 
though he suffered severely from his first fall ; 
how, in a word, being unacquainted with the 
name of Hoff, and not knowing the direct road to 
Silesia, by which he had arrived in a carriage, and 
being unable to ask many questions without ex- 
citing observation, especially on account of the 
singularity of his appearance, he was in the end 
arrested. He then, at least, had the momentary 
consolation of believing that you had both 
escaped ; for it was only at Olmutz that he heard 
of M. Huger's arrest, and he was not certain even 
of yours till he underwent the interrogatory to 
which, through consideration for both of you, he 
consented to reply ; and in the course of which, 
having refused to speak on the secret correspond- 
ence, it was found necessary to prove to him that 
the surgeon and yourself had disclosed everything. 
I shall make no effort to describe to you his feel- 
ings during your horrible captivity. Though we 
found him recovered, especially since he had been 
informed of your deliverance, it was but too evi- 
dent how much his heart had suffered from the 
moral tortures so basely inflicted on him — tortures 



150 THE KNIGHT OF LHiERTX- 

which even to me, who had been in France, the 
witness and the victim of the most atrocious and 
tyrannical anarchy, appeared the most cruel refine- 
ment of barbarity that hatred could contrive. 

"You would render us a vast additional service 
if you could transmit to the excellent and gen- 
erous M. Huger the expression of our gratitude, 
admiration, and regard, and the assurance of the 
feelings with which Lafayette is inspired by the 
idea of owing the highest possible obligation to 
the son of the first man who received him, and of 
the first friend whom he possessed, in America. 
Will you have the kindness to undertake to speak 
to M. Pinckney, of our grateful attachment to 
him, and also of our confidence, and to say a 
thousand kind things to our charming friend, Mrs. 
Church ? We are too well assured of her hus- 
band's friendship not to feel assured that he too is 
wholly occupied with our affairs. 

" Adieu, Sir ; when shall we be able to speak to 
you in person of the feelings wiiich we so justly 
entertain toward you, and of which our hearts 
must forever be so deeply sensible ? 

" NoAiLLEs Lafayette." 




CHAPTER XXII. 

THE KEY OF THE BASTILLE. 

HAT shall be done with George?" So ♦ 
asked Mme. Lafayette of her daughters, 
when she first resolved to go in search 
of her husband. George was her son, then a 
boy. 

" I shall take you with me ; but George Wash- 
ington, the heart of his father, what shall we do 
with him ?" 

" Let me go with you," said the boy. 
" There is one heart in the world to whom I 
can trust you. It is that of Washington. He 
will be true to you for your father's sake. You 
bear his name. I will send you to him." 

A Boston gentleman was about to sail for 
America, whom Mme. Lafayette knew, and of 
whose character she had a high opinion. 

" May I trust my boy to you ? " she asked of 
him. "Will you direct him to Washington ? He 

151 



152 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

will tell his own story to Washington when he 
meets the statesman." 

" You may trust him to me, to Washington, and 
to the American public. Everyone in America 
will be a brother to the son of Lafayette. Wash- 
ington will be a father to him." 

*' If my husband should ever gain his freedom, 
he will ever love those who befriend his boy, at 
this time of dire distress and peril. As I said, sir, 
that boy is the heart of his father. Their lives 
are one. I know that Washington will be a 
father to him. I can trust the great American, 
and I can trust America ! " 

Some families have noble and beautiful friend- 
ships, and the relation between Lafayette and his 
son made both lives happy. Lafayette gave his 
son the name of George Washington, as a seal of 
eternal friendship for the hero of the West. As 
the boy grew up, they became companions, they 
loved each other, and each seemed to be happy 
when the other was near. 

Lafayette trained this boy to republican princi- 
ples, he taught him that wealth and fame were of 
themselves of little worth, and that character is 
everything. 



THE KEY TO THE BASTILLE. 1 53 

The boy accepted these teachings ; he believed 
them ; they entered into his heart. 

An intimate friend of Lafayette's thus pictures 
the conclusions to which that hero came, after his 
study of men : 

" Proud of having lost his feudal nobility, Lafay- 
ette looked upon the land of liberty as giving a 
promise to mankind of a richer harvest of public 
virtue than the barren fields of sable, gold, or 
azure, so long moistened with the tears and 
the blood of nations. He recognized no other 
nobility than that of the feelings of the soul ; he 
admitted no other distinctions among men than 
those acquired by them from their virtues, their 
talents, or their services to their fellow-men. 

" The aristocracy of money, that of the rich 
man, is one of the most powerful, one of those 
which in general excite the strongest desire to 
form part of it. To become wealthy, and conse- 
quently to possess the power and means of satisfy- 
ing one's tastes and passions, is to many the 
object of existence. Nevertheless, the aristocracy 
of money may have something noble in it, when, 
like the horn of plenty, it bestows its treasures on 
men whom it relieves, on commerce which it ani- 
mates, or on the earth which it fertilizes, — but 
what is it in itself? It frequently requires little 



154 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

intelligence to amass much money, supposing it 
legitimately acquired ; but great qualities are 
required to make a prudent use of wealth, and to 
circulate it freely, without extravagance. The 
prodigal sow their treasures in the bed of a tor- 
rent, without honor to themselves, and without 
advantage to their country. On the other hand, 
the avaricious capitalist impoverishes his country, 
by hoarding wealth and by stopping the circu- 
lation of the vivifying metal. Like the strong 
box, he possesses a value only when full, and is of 
use only when he can be emptied. Avarice is the 
rust of the soul : nothing grand or generous can 
germ or develop itself in the miser's withered 
heart ! 

"The pride arising from the possession of 
wealth is always ridiculous : it can make a fool 
of a man estimable in other respects, by causing 
him to forget or to conceal his origin, which no 
other person forgets, and which malice delights in 
exposing to public view ; by urging him to make 
an ostentatious display of the weakness which he 
ought to conceal ; and especially, by filling him 
with absurd pretensions to the other descriptions 
of aristocracy. 

" The aristocracy of intelligence, undoubtedly 
renders highly commendable the men who confer 
honor on their country, or contribute to the wel- 



THE KEY TO THE BASTILLE. 1 55 

fare of mankind, by their labors in literature, 
science, or the arts ; but in what estimation would 
a literary man, an artist, or a man of science be 
held, if his character were found unworthy of his 
talent, or of his intellectual superiority?" 

Such were Lafayette's views of life, and these 
opinions became a part of the heart and character 
of his son. Lafayette himself says of his boy : 

" The fact is, that George, who is a republican 
patriot, — and I have met with few such in my life- 
time, — has besides a passion for the military pro- 
fession, for which I think him adapted as he pos- 
sesses a sound and calm judgment, a just percep- 
tion, a strong local memory, and will be equally 
beloved by his superiors, his comrades, and his 
subordinates. I love him with' too much tender- 
ness to make any distinction between his desires 
and mine ; and I am too great an enemy to 
oppression of every description to place a 
restraint on the wishes of a beloved son, nearly 
twenty years of age. I could joyfully see him 
covered with honorable scars, but beyond that 
supposition, I have not the courage to contem- 
plate existence." 

The son of Lafayette, with a tutor named 
Frestel, landed in Boston in August, 1785. He 



15^ THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

desired seclusion, and he passed by the name of 
Motier ; his full name was George Washington 
Motier de Lafayette. 

The boy and his tutor had come to Boston on 
the invitation of a man named Cabot, who com- 
municated the arrival of the son of Lafayette 
to President Washington, then at Philadelphia. 
Washington answered, " I will be to him a father 
and friend, protector and supporter." 

Washington met the boy at Philadelphia, and 
the latter and his tutor made their home with 
him there. They went later to Mount Vernon. 

It was a still, clear day, as the boy approached 
the simple republican house, with its great portico 
and grand trees. 

On the same eventful year that the Bastille fell, 
Washington had been made by the people the 
President of the great Republic of the West that 
Lafayette had done so much to found. He was 
now about to retire from the Presidency, and was 
already preparing to make Mount Vernon his 
permanent home. His farewell address had gone 
forth to the American people. 

When Lafayette was compelled to flee to 
Flanders, he was the commander of the victorious 



THE KEY TO THE BASTILLE. 15/ 

army of Ardennes. It was the slanders of the 
Jacobins, who accused him of treason, that began 
the series of events that drove him out of France. 

As Washington and the son of his old friend 
came to the mansion, at Mount Vernon, the boy 
stood under the portico and looked out on the 
Potomac, that lay like a glimmer of silver among 
the clouds of trees. The estate was not like 
Lagrange, his own home. Everything in the new 
country seemed strange to him. 

Lady Washington did her best to make the boy 
happy on this serene day. Her sympathy was 
that of a mother. 

" My son, you are welcome here to our hearts 
and home," we may suppose her to have said. 

" You have a home, but my father is an exile 
and a prisoner, if indeed he be alive," said the boy 
in his heart. 

"You bear our name," we fancy her to have 
said. " Your father not only honored our nation 
when he gave you that name, but he implied in it 
that you were to be a son to us. You are our 
son, and the nation's son, and here is to be your 
home, until your father returns." 

" Returns, from where ? I do not know where 



158 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

my father is. They say that an American young 
man has discovered him at Olmutz. My 
mother and sisters have gone there." He looked 
down the green banks, through the oaks and mag- 
nolias. His heart was at Lagrange, or with his 
father in the Austrian prison. 

" Lady Washington ? " 

"My son." 

"You have a happy home. Washington fought 
for liberty, and I am an exile in the country for 
which he fought." 

One of the family at Mount Vernon came out 
on the portico, holding in his hand a great key. 

"You are the son of Lafayette?" asked the 
gentleman. 

"Yes, my father is Lafayette." 

" His heart souo-ht us in our distress as a 
nation, and the heart of the nation will always 
love his son." 

" But he has lost all, in trying to gain the liber- 
ties of France. Oh, my poor father ! my poor 
mother ! " 

" The General of the Army of Ardennes has 
not lost all. The times have changed, my boy ; 
but France will one day become a free nation, like 



THE KEY TO THE BASTILLE. 1 59 

America. Your father was a Knight of Liberty 
to us, he will prove some day to have been the 
apostle of Liberty to France." 

The boy burst into tears. 

" My father, my father ! What did he not do 
for France? I wish that I might enfold him 
in my arms, as I used to do. I long for him all 
the time. I used to feel his heart beat, — that 
heart, that heart, — I wish that I might feel it 
again. Do you think that France will ever again 
love my father?" 

" My boy, do you know what that is ?" 

The gentleman held up before him the key of 
the Bastille. 

" No, sir. It is an old key, but I never saw it 
before." 

" Your father sent it to us." 

" My father ! Let me take it." 

" Your father wrote this letter to Washington, 
when he sent the key." 

He handed the boy the letter. It read : 

"Give me leave, my dear General, to present 
to you a picture of the Bastille, just as it looked 
a few days after I ordered its demolition, with the 
main key of the fortress of despotism. 



l60 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

" It is a tribute which I owe, as a son to my 
adopted father, as an aid-de-camp to my general, 
as a missionary of liberty to its patriarch." 

The boy took the key and kissed it. 

"My father sent it?" 

" Yes, my boy. That was the key of the Bastille. 
That key will never unlock the Bastille again." 

" No, sir." 

" And there will never be another bastille in 
France after what your father has done." 

" Do you think that France will be a free 
nation like yours ? " 

" Yes, my son ; you hold in your hand the key 
of the Bastille, and when the Bastille fell, despo- 
tism fell. Your father has made France free, and 
her people will never again be slaves. Be happy 
with us ; you bear our name. This home shall be 
your own. The nation will love you until your 
father returns. You should be a proud boy. 
Your father's sword helped to make this nation 
free, and you hold in your hand the key of the 
Bastille." 

George Washington Lafayette would have 
been delighted in the new country had his father 
been with him. 



THE KEY TO THE BASTILE. l6l 

Soon after Washington left the chair of state 
(March 4, 1797), he proceeded to Alexandria. 
It was beautiful weather. The hills, valleys, and 
river banks were filled with flowers. Bird 
songs enlivened the bright air. The children 
strewed the streets with flowers as he passed, and 
Cincinnatus-like, the great commoner went back 
to the farm and people, amid the almost uni- 
versal praise of mankind. 

The boy saw the glory of the noble man. He 
heard the applause of the people, and he was 
proud that his own name entered into this great 
expression of gratitude — George Washington 
Lafayette. 

He looked up to Washington, that serene man, 
and wondered and dreamed. Did this man ever 
know sorrow ? Had he ever been maligned, as 
had been his father ? 

One day, as he was sitting on the great piazza 
of Mount Vernon, overlooking the green, the 
woods, and the river, he said to a gentleman, the 
one of the family who had handed him the key : 

" Did anyone ever think evil or speak a hard 
word of Washington ? " 

" My boy," said the gentleman, " read that." 



l62 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

He handed the boy a paper called The Aurora. 
The boy read : 

" If ever a nation has been debauched by a 
man, the American nation has been by Washing- 
ton. If ever a nation has been deceived by a 
man, the American nation has been by Washing- 
ton. Let his conduct then be an example to 
future ages. Let it serve to be a warning that no 
man may ever be an idol. Let the history of the 
Federal Government instruct mankind, that the 
masque of patriotism may be worn to conceal the 
foulest designs against the liberties of a people." 

The boy read this, and more like it, with aston- 
ishment. 

" They destroyed my father's influence in that 
way," he said. " Can it be, can it be ? Is there 
no help for such slanders as these?" 

" Yes, my boy." 

"What, sir?" 

" Time. Time tells the truth about all men. 
When a mean man injures another, it creates 
a sympathy for him in the heart of some noble 
man, and so he who is unjustly treated gains 
more than he loses. My boy, I have something 



THE KEY TO THE BASTILLE. 163 

wonderful to tell you. But I will let another bear 
the news." 

Lady Washington sent out to the boy a letter. 
He read it with surprise and wet eyes, and said : 

" His name is Huger." 

" Whose name ? " 

" The young American, who found where my 
father was imprisoned." 

" Did you know that Huger was the first boy 
your father met on landing on the American 
shore ? " 

" No, sir ; no." 

" He was ; and he took him upon his knee, and 
loved him at once, and the two became friends. 
That boy then could not have been more than 
three or four years of age." He added: " My boy, 
what did I just say to you ? Listen to it again. 
When a mean man injures another, it creates a 
sympathy for him in the heart of some good man, 
and so he who is unjustly treated gains more 
than he loses. Is not this likely to be true of 
your father? The laws of God are good, and 
they make Time a friend to all." 




CHAPTER XXIII. 

THE BAG OF GOLD AGAIN. 

APTURED," said Malan, the Jew, as he 
paced his garden, after the news of the 
capture of Lafayette had been brought 
by courier to Vienna. " And where is my bag 
of gold ? " 

" Any injury that we do to another, hurts our 
own souls," he continued, pacing to and fro under 
the lime trees. " And any good that we do for 
another helps our own souls." He paused and 
looked down the P"reen sward. 

'* But where is my bag of gold ? The governor 
of the fortress has got it. It has gone to en- 
rich Jmnr 

The parrot saw that her master was In trouble, 
and began to make inquiries. " What is the mat- 
ter, Polly ? " was a common expression with her, 
and she was saying it over and over, in English, 
and old Malan understood Encrljsh well. 

The Jew turned his face toward the sky, which 

164 



THE BAG OF GOLD AGAIN. l6$ 

was suffused with sunset light. The good spirit 
in his soul had been growing for years, and it now 
brouofht beautiful thouo;hts to him. 

"Any injury that we seek to do others harms 
our own souls," he said, and then, with a beneficent 
face, he added : " And any good which we seek 
to do for another helps our own souls. Where is 
my bag of gold? It is in my soul. It will bless 
my soul, but I wish it were in Lafayette's pocket." 

" What's the matter ? " asked the blue-fronted 
bird. 

" Nothing is the matter, you poor, simple, beau- 
tiful creature. To him who does right everything 
in this world is right, and it will all be well in 
the world to come. Good desires are the soul of 
events, and I have the wish that before I die I 
may take the hand of Lafayette ; I would make 
a pilgrimage to meet him ; the many make the 
nation, but a few sympathetic hearts the family 
of God." 

The children gathered around the old man 
under the lime tree. " Hurrah !" said the Boli- 
var parrot. " Hurrah for Lafayette / " 

"That will never do," said the Jew. He cov- 
ered the bird's cage with a mantle, and with poor 



l66 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

Polly it was night. That was a dangerous word 
now, a very dangerous word. It haunted his 
thoughts. Were a single watchman or guard to 
hear it, it would bring him under suspicion. 

" And now, children, you may go," he said pleas- 
antly, and led them toward the gate. 

He closed the gate and removed the cage from 
the lime tree to his room, and there sat down 
to dream of liberty in the land of the fame of 
Washington, and of the triumphs of human rights 
in the West. 

" All the world is one country," he said in his 
proverbial way ; " and there was never a cause 
that lacked a Curtius." 

There came a heavy rap on the door. 

The Jew started and listened. It was repeated. 
He went to the door, and found there an Austrian 
officer. 

" I wish to speak with you," said the officer. 

"Come in." 

The officer entered. 

" Did you exchange money for a young Amer- 
ican traveler, a week or more ago ? " 

" I did." 

"That man has been arrested." 



THE BAG OF GOLD AGAIN. 167 

"That were no fault of mine." 

" He was engaged in a conspiracy to liberate a 
prisoner of state. He was rich, for there was 
found on the prisoner of state a treasure which 
only a rich man could have furnished him." 

" And please you, what might it have been ?" 

" It was a bag of gold." 

There was another loud rap on the door. 
Another officer entered. 

"I have traced the case here," said the first 
officer. " We must investigate." 

" There is no need," said the second. 

"Why?" 

"Do you not see that the man is a Jew?" 

" Yes ; but he confesses that he exchanged 
money for the young man." 

"That is nothing; he did not give the young 
man the treasure." 

"Why not?" 

" Why not ? Was it ever heard that a Jew gave 
one, not his countryman, a bag of gold ?" 

The officer rose. The parrot had put her 
pretty head out from under the mantle. 

"Hurrah!" 

The Jew trembled. But the two officers went" 



l68 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

away laughing good humoredly. Their feet 
echoed along the street, farther and farther away. 

The old Jew's heart was hurt. He thought of 
the reproachful taunt : " Did ever a Jew ?" 

" Did ever a Jew ? " he said. " Yes, for liberty ; 
yes, for humanity ; yes, for God ! My days are 
swifter than a weaver's shuttle, but I shall live. 
The gray hairs in my beard are numbering my 
hours, but I am not yet altogether gray. I shall 
meet Lafayette some day, if he lives, and then 
will come back to me my bag of gold. ' Did ever 
a Jew?' Yes — Malan." 

He sank upon the couch. The lights went out 
in the streets, and the candle failed in the room. 
He dreamed of a happier day for his and every 
race, and his heart was light, for he had contrib- 
uted to that day — "Did ever a Jew?" — a bag 
of gold. 




CHAPTER XXIV. 

FATHER AND SON. 

AFAYETTE'S son returned to France 
and entered the army. It was Lafay- 
ette's pride to watch the development of 
this boy ; whatever might happen to himself, he 
desired the happiness of him whose life to him 
was more than his own. But in this youth, as in 
the case of the ancient patriarch, his character was 
to be tested, and his faith tried. 

Napoleon was rising in military glory. He had 
eclipsed Lafayette and become the popular hero of 
France. He followed his great ambitions, and 
instead of losing himself in a cause he lost his 
cause in himself. 

After Lafayette had declined to support him as 

consul for life. Napoleon became the secret enemy 

of the great apostle of liberty. He once offered 

him a position of the value of twice his then 

diminished income, but Lafayette would not be 

169 



I/O THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

untrue to the principles he had proclaimed in his 
declaration of the rights of man and in the consti- 
tution, for money. 

George Washington Lafayette entered the 
army under Napoleon. His high character and 
bravery as a young officer won him distinction. 
Napoleon could not bend Lafayette, but he 
could disappoint him in his son, and this he seems 
to have resolved to do. 

One day this son returned to his father with a 
face of grief. 

" You have not been promoted," said Lafayette. 
" It is no fault of your own ; it is on my account ; 
you are suffering for your father's honor. I am 
sorry that it is so, but I must be what I ought to 
be. What new humiliation brings you here, for I 
see that your heart is hurt ?" 

" General Grouchy desires my resignation," said 
the young man. " He can give no true reason for 
it ; I think it is because Napoleon wishes it so. I 
have done my duty and been a true soldier. I 
have obeyed, dared, and sought the most perilous 
service." 

" Were Napoleon a magnanimous man he would 
never belittle himself by treating you thus. An 



FATHER AND SON. I71 

officer who would treat another in this way has 
none of the high qualties of soul that merit glory 
— mark my words : Napoleon will fall. Only 
what is true lasts, and he that saveth his life shall 
lose it. 

" ' Mi! ffl ira, ^a ira, ga ira. 
The exalted shall be abased ! ' 

" I have read the ambition of this man's heart ; 
he seeks the glory of France for his own glory, 
and not for liberty, justice, and the welfare of 
mankind. I may hope it is not so ; but from 
his own conversations with me, so I fear it is. If 
it be so, he will fall. Heaven holds the scales." 

" But what can I do ? Shall I resign as he de- 
sires ? My heart says no ! Resign without a 
cause, in the presence of the enemies of France ? 
It would be dishonor ! " 

" No, my son ; serve France. You may not be 
promoted, but in the presence of the enemies of 
France, serve the cause. We must wait events 
for justice. Time is the friend of all true hearts 
and right efforts. 

" If I misunderstand Napoleon, time will correct 
me. If he be led by ambition, the end will jus- 



172 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

tify my judgment. I am sorry that you must 
suffer for my convictions. Serve the cause, and 
wait." 

" I am glad to suffer for your honor. I beHeve 
that Yorktovvn stands for more than all the 
victories of Napoleon. But I must be a true 
soldier and obey !" 

" Yes, my son ; that is right." 

The humiliation of this favorite son made the 
heart of Lafayette bleed. It was the most cruel 
experience that could come into his life. But he 
was proud to know that his boy was a hero. 
Nothing is lost while honor is gained. 

Should Napoleon fall, would Lafayette be 
magnanimous to him after a refinement of cruelty 
like this? Events are hastening, and we shall 
see. 

Napoleon became the apparent master of 
Europe. In 1804 he crowned himself emperor in 
the Church of Notre Dame, in Paris, and France 
acclaimed. There was so much that was noble in 
the life of Napoleon, so many things to be com- 
mended, that Lafayette could not be sure that 
the view that he had taken of him was true, 
but he knew that to crumble is the fate of all 



FATHER AND SON. 1 73 

selfish gravitation. He could be loyal to France 
and wait. 

The emperor went forth to new conquests. He 
crowned his brother Joseph, King of Spain. He 
rewarded those who were faithful to him with the 
honors and spoils of the world's battlefields. He 
met with reverses, but he rose again. 




CHAPTER XXV. 

SUNSET AT WATERLOO. 

T was the night of the 17th of June, 
18 1 5. There were gay gatherings in 
Brussels, then a beautiful city, and now 
one of the most beautiful cities in all the world. 
The people did not know that Napoleon was 
rushing forward his fiery and veteran army, of 
nearly one hundred thousand men, to crush Well- 
ington before the latter could unite his forces with 
those of the allies against France. 

So it was a gay night. The English officers 
were there, and there were balls at the Hotel de 
Ville, whose ballroom is still shown, and at other 
places, and the Duchess of Brunswick had invited 
Wellington to the festivities of her house, which 
is now partly or wholly gone. 

" There was a sound of revelry by night. 
And Belgium's capital had gathered then 
Her beauty and her chivalry, and bright 
The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men. 

174 



SUNSET AT WATERLOO. I75 

A thousand hearts beat happily and when 
Music arose with its voluptuous swell, 
Soft eyes looked love to eyes that spake again. 
And all went happy as a marriage bell." 

The city blazed. But amid the festival, there 
was heard the roar of cannon afar : 



" Within a windowed niche of that high hall 
Sat Brunswick's fated chieftain ; he did hear 
The sound the first amid the festival." 



The alarm ended the joyous scenes. Was 
Napoleon indeed approaching ? Napoleon, who 
had said that destiny and he were one ? Napo- 
leon, who at the height of his power had once 
declared that he would ascend to the dictatorship 
of the world ; that there must be one coinage and 
one court of appeal for all Europe ; that the states 
of Europe must be melted into one nation, and 
i^aris be the capital ? '' Man proposes, but God 
disposes," an humble Russian woman is reported 
to have said to him. " I propose and dispose," 
was the answer. Napoleon struck, but the blow 
rebounded. But he was again free ; and the old 
guard and young France were following him. He 
had believed that Providence was on the side of 



176 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

the heaviest artillery, and, if he were indeed 
approaching, he had the heaviest artillery. Was 
it the thunder of those guns that were sullenly 
shakinor the halls ? 

But there was another thunder that was shak- 
ing the sky. Black clouds had gathered on the 
morning of the i8th. The battle of Waterloo 
was first fought, as it were, in the sky. The 
artillery of Heaven poured down a deluging rain 
all that hot, fireless morning, and it made the great 
plain a sea of mud, over which the heavy artillery 
of Napoleon would find it hard to pass. 

The field of Waterloo is some twelve miles 
from Brussels. One may ride to it now on the 
long summer days, and listen to a lecture from 
the top of the great monumental mole, on which 
rests the bronze lion of Waterloo, made of French 
cannon, and return to the city at night, through 
the lovely forests and wide poppy-dotted gardens. 

Terror filled the city as the army formed to 
hurry outward under the clouded stars : 



' And there was mounting in hot haste, the steed. 
The mustering squadron, and the clattering car 
Went pouring forward with impetuous speed. 
And swiftly forming in the ranks of war." 



SUNSET AT WATERLOO. 1/7 

The army swept down through the forest of 
Ardennes that wet morn : 

" And Ardennes waves above them her green leaves 
Dewy with nature's tear drops as they pass." 

The powers that were to decide the fate of 
Europe were gathering under the clouded sky. 
"Waterloo was not a battle," says Victor Hugo, 
" but the change of front of the universe." 

Wellington was at a disadvantage, but Bliicher, 
now at a distance, had promised to re-enforce him 
an hour after noon of that day. Would he come ? 
He had made the promise when he knew not the 
events that were impending. Napoleon had from 
70,000 to 90,000 men, and the Anglo-Netherlands 
army, or the allies under Wellington, would, 
should Blucher come, number nearly 70,000, of 
which 25,000 were British troops. 

Should Wellington face the fiery French army, 
and risk the coming of Blucher? The French 
had 240 cannon, and he but 156. This he could 
not have known, and had he known it, he prob- 
ably did not believe that Providence sided with 
the heaviest artillery. 

Napoleon was certain of victory as he stood on 



178 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

the hills under the lowering sky, and saw his 
advantage over his foe. He laughed in derision 
as he sat with his officers, like Xerxes at Salamis. 

The green earth was mud ; the sky was lead ; 
the skirmish lines blazed and rattled, and between 
eleven and twelve o'clock the battle began, Napo- 
leon attempting to take Hougoumont, whose well 
and ruins may still be seen, and into whose well, it 
is claimed, hundreds of bodies were thrown after 
the battle, some dead, some wounded, and the 
wounded crying out piteously, in their open tomb, 
for hours and days, for rescue and the chance for 
life. " Had Napoleon taken Hougoumont," says 
one, " he might have had the world." But 
Hougoumont was not taken. In its green gardens 
and orchards, that day, some three thousand men 
fell. But the men stationed there were heroes, 
and they felt that to them had been given the key 
of the temple of fate. 

As one visits the ruined chateau now under 
the blue sky of summer, amid the gay poppy 
fields, and hears the birds singing in the cool 
trees, one can hardly imagine how gray and red 
and blasting was that day. The low clouds lifted, 
but the sky was still overcast. 



SUNSET AT WATERLOO. 1 79 

At two o'clock Napoleon felt that the crisis of 
the battle had come. He did not doubt that " he 
and destiny were one." Never was Marshal Ney, 
" the bravest of the brave," prouder than at that 
hour. He swept down 20,000 men upon Welling- 
ton's squares. But the English met the shock 
with the steadiness of men whose commissions 
were in their souls. The French met an awful 
loss. 

Did a doubt begin to enter Napoleon's mind 
now ? He had sat on his white steed on 
the green heights, with his telescope in hand, on 
that morning of destiny, arrayed like a con- 
queror whose victory was already assured. His 
cloak, indeed, concealed his epaulettes, red rib- 
bon, and stars. His white horse had housings of 
purple velvet, with decorations of N's and eagles. 
By his side was the victorious sword of Marengo. 

Four o'clock came. The great plain and slop- 
ing hills were covered with the dead and dying. 

The Prince of Orange, who commanded the 
center, had given his immortal order to the Bel- 
gians : 

" Never yield an inch." 

The army of Wellington had stretched from 



l80 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

chateau of Hougoumont to a distant farm house 
called La Haye Sainte. 

Wellington sat, mounted on his horse, in front 
of the old mill of Mount St. Jean, near an elm 
tree, the site of which is still shown. His aid-de- 
camp fell by his side, and his officers around him, 
but his mind never wavered from the fate of the 
day. A shell came screaming through the air and 
bursted near him. 

"My Lord," said Lord Hill, "what orders do 
you leave for us if you are killed ?" 

" Do as I am doing now." 

Seeing that events looked dark, and that 
Bliicher had not come, he said, " Boys, can you 
think of giving way — remember old England ! " 

The English moved back behind a ridge, to 
consolidate. 

The army, except the artillery and sharp- 
shooters, seemed to have disappeared. 

Then, if ever, the heart of Napoleon swelled 
with pride. The dream of his life seemed about 
to be realized. * 

" It is the beginning of retreat ! " he cried. 

" It is a pretty chess board," he had said of the 
armies in the morning, and the game seemed to 



SUNSET AT WATERLOO. l8l 

have been won. And now was the time to send 
the glad news to Paris. How the city would 
blaze with light ! 

" Fly," said he, to the courier, '' and tell them 
the field is won ! The English are in retreat !" 

There remained one thing to be done. It was 
to sweep Wellington's hidden squares from the 
plateau. The cavalry must do this and the 
cavalry were giant men on giant horses. He 
gazed at the ridge. How splendidly these giants 
would mount it and hurl their irresistible force 
down on the other side. 

He had by his side a guide named Lacoste. 
He bent low and said to him, " Is there any 
obstruction between us and the plateau?" 

The peasant shook his head. 

It was not true. 

The reader may never have seen a sunken 
road. If he visit the field of Waterloo to-day he 
will probably ride through one, for such a road lies 
between the railway and the mound of the lion. 

A sunken road is a deep depression in the 

centre of a hill. One might pass close to the hill, 

or even along its side and not know that such a 

road was there. 
13 



l82 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

There was such a sunken road in the ridee 
between the cavalry and the plateau, and the 
peasant guide probably knew that there was. 
But his denial followed his heart and not his 
conscience. 

The grand cavalry charge, in the view of Napo- 
leon, would end all. Then he would sweep 
toward the center of the continent, and who 
should stay his eagles ? He would be Alexander ! 
He would be Caesar! France should be the 
world ! 

The giant horsemen were three thousand five 
hundred in number. 

How magnificent they looked as their horses 
mounted the ridge of the plateau ! 

There were twenty-six squadrons, and eleven 
hundred and ninety-six sabers and nearly as 
many lances gleamed in the dissolving air. Ney 
was at their head, "the bravest of the brave." 
He drew his saber. They raised their sabers and 
gave their standards to the air. They moved as 
one spirit, and if ever victory seemed to hover in 
the air — victory complete — it was then. 

Behind the crest of the plateau, in which was 
the sunken road, Wellington had consolidated his 



SUNSET AT WATERLOO. 1 83 

squares, and he calmly awaited the coming of the 
army of death. 

There was a silence there, and the rush of the 
three thousand horses seemed to rend the air 
before the hills. The cuirassiers mounted the 
ridge. What a scene was there that made the 
blood fly from each leader's cheek and his heart 
sink ? 

There yawned under their very feet the sunken 
road ; a chasm, a grave. They could not halt. 
Into that chasm the first rank of men and horses 
went down, then the second rank, crushing their 
riders, and at last when the road was full of the 
dead and dying, the rest of the cavalry, impelled 
by an irresistible momentum, rode over their 
bodies to new slaughters in the open field. 

Two thousand horses and fifteen hundred men 
were buried, according to the local tradition, in or 
about this awful abyss, on the following days. 

The battle that followed is one of the most 
terrible In history. Division after division of 
the English army was borne down, yet the army, 
as a whole, did what the Iron Duke did, stood 
like statues. 

Ney had four horses shot under him. The 



1 84 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

giant horses at times leaped upon the EngHsh 
bayonets. After twelve assaults the English army 
still stood, and the giant cavalry had spent its 
force. 

Ney sent a message to Napoleon — how it 
must have shaken the emperor's heart ! 

" Send me infantry." 

"Infantry!" said Napoleon; "does he think 
that I can make them ? " 

Five o'clock came. Wellington looked at his 
watch. 

" It is Blucher or night," he said — meaning 
help or defeat. 

Blucher's army had been delayed by the mud. 
But early in the battle, under the dissolving 
clouds, Napoleon had seen a cloud a long way off 
on the hills that raised his apprehension. He 
peered through his glass. 

" I see a cloud over there," he said. " It looks 
like troops." 

He looked again. 

" Soult, what do you see?" 

" Men, sire ; four or five thousand of them." 

"They are columns halting," said one officer. 

" They are only trees," said others. 



SUNSET AT WATERLOO. 1 85 

It was now near nightfall. The great cavalry- 
charge had failed ; and Blucher was thundering 
down to the field. To Wellington it was Blucher, 
and to Napoleon night. 

The French reeled back before the third army. 
At first all was terror and confusion ; then the 
retreat became a rout. " God disposes ! " 

It was evening. The clouds rolled away. The 
sky burned. It was sunset. 

It was sunset with thee, Napoleon ! It was 
sunset, let us hope, with wars of ambition and 
conquest in Europe. 

But where now is Marshal Ney, the bravest of 
the brave ? He finds a horse, a strange horse, 
and he mounts it, without hat or sword, and has- 
tens to order back the flying army. But they still 
fly, shouting, " Long live Marshal Ney." 

And Napoleon ? He too rides after the fugi- 
tives, but they still fly, crying out " Long live the 
Emperor ! " 

That June night the moon came out, and under 
it the battlefield blazed and smoked ; and men 
groaned and died. Nearly fifty thousand men lay 
on the field. 

Napoleon turned toward Paris — what must have 



1 86 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

been his thoughts of God, fate, and this change- 
able world, in this solitary hour ? 

He at first rode alone, but was recognized by 
flying men by his gray overcoat and white horse. 

There was a p;reat orchard on the farm of 
La Belle Alliance. He came to it, and reined his 
horse into the shadows. It was a silent place, 
dark with leaves. It was there that must have 
come to him the full revelation of his fall. Few 
things are more pathetic in his history than this 
brief night solitude in the lonely orchard. 

" What would father say if he saw us now ? " he 
had asked of his favorite brother, Joseph, as they 
dressed for his coronation in 1804. 

His thoughts may have turned to his brother In 
this dreadful hour ; he wrote to him a short time 
later. Alas ! what would his father have said could 
he have seen him in the shadows of the French 
farmhouse, for that little time alone ? What is 
there in history more pathetic than Napoleon in 
that orchard of La Belle Alliance, all alone ? 

Two French soldiers presently came riding by. 
They had lost their way. They discovered him 
there in solitude and called after him. Thinking 
that call was a warning that he was being pur- 



SUNSET AT WATERLOO. 187 

sued, he darted forward, and came to Charleroi. 
He obtained a post carriage and rode like the 
wind to the walls of Phillipeville, where he wrote 
that letter to his brother Joseph. Sleep ? did he 
sleep that night ? 

And this was the end of the slaughters of men 
for glory ! He went to Paris, and the Assembly 
demanded his abdication. He must now flee. 
Where ? Whither ? 

In the midst of his confusion and peril, there 
came to him a message. Its magnanimity re- 
vealed to him a grand man, whose life had been 
governed by the divinity within. It said in sub- 
stance, " I will prepare the way for you to go to 
America." 

America ? Whence came that noble, compas- 
sionate message ? Lafayette, who would not 
accept his favors and whom he had sought to 
injure in his son. Not America, but St. Helena, 
was to be the destination of the man who had 
crowned and discrowned kings. 

Napoleon — Lafayette ! The name of one lives 
with the achievements of selfish glory, and the 
other with the well-being of mankind. Let us go 
with Lafayette and his injured son to a different 
field from this. 




CHAPTER XXVI. 

THE UNEXPECTED MEETING. 

HE arrival of Lafayette in New York, as 
the guest of the Nation, was the 
expected event of 1824. He came on 
the morning of August the 15th, and began what 
was to him a triumphal march through the repub- 
lic, whose liberties he had done so much to secure. 
Banners waved, bells pealed, the air resounded 
with " Long live Lafayette," and children strewed 
the streets with flowers. Never, in ancient or 
modern times, did a reception of any benefactor of 
humanity more engage the people's hearts. 

On the 1 6th, Lafayette was publicly received 
in the City of New York. All business was sus- 
pended on that glorious August day. The morn- 
ing brought the booming of cannon and the ring- 
ing of bells. All buildings of importance were 
gay with flags ; the harbor was a canopy of red, 
white, and blue. Some fifty thousand people 

crowded the Battery — Castle Garden was a 

188 



THE UNEXPECTED MEETING. 189 

canopy of French and American colors — every- 
where glowed the motto — " Welcome Lafayette !" 

About eleven o'clock in the morning, a steamship 
bearing the flags of all nations and followed by 
crowded boats sailed to Staten Island, where 
Lafayette then was, to escort the hero to the city. 
He was landed at the Battery about noon, from a 
steamer bearing only the United States and New 
York flags. 

Seldom in the world has there been felt a 
nobler thrill of gratitude than that which filled the 
hearts of the people as that steamer swept up 
through the shouting harbor. Grand speeches 
were made on the arrival, and they were followed 
by reviews, receptions, and illuminations. The 
city hardly knew any night in those days, when all 
hearts beat to the one heart of Lafayette. 

At one of the brilliant receptions, a young man 
of chivalrous bearing was presented to the Gen- 
eral. He bowed and said : 

" You do not remember me. I first met you 
when a little boy. I have seen you but once 
since, and then we could not be understood." 

" Your name is Hueer ? " 

" Yes, Francis Kinlock Huger." 



190 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

"Can it be possible? I first met you when a 
boy, and you asked me many questions." 

** Yes, General, and that was just after you had 
made your vow by the Carolinian sea that prob- 
ably decided the fate of America." 

" My son, my son ! you once offered your life 
for mine." 

" I put myself In peril once for your sake, and 
for the honor of America." 

"My son, my more than friend ! " we may sup- 
pose Lafayette to have thought. " Do you wish 
to know what is the most glorious hour of life? 
It is when one meets an unknown friend who has 
offered to die for him. What can one say at such 
an hour? The tongue has no language; poetry 
fails. The atmosphere of the hero Is there. 
You, you, in the sunset woods near Olmutz, loved 
me better than your own life. Let me embrace 
you. This is an hour of which I have dreamed ; 
my heart is full ; nothing can express what this 
meeting is to me ! " 

In words like these he took the young man to 
his arms. It is one of the noblest hours of 
human glory when a patriot meets such a friend. 

The accounts of the reception of Lafayette, as 



THE UNEXPECTED MEETING. 191 

the Nation's guest, would fill volumes, as they 
have already done ; the noble speeches made by 
the great orators of the elder day, his own 
addresses, and the thrilling scenes at Washington, 
in the South, on the old battlefields, and at the 
laying of the cornerstone of the monument at 
Bunker Hill. 

These we must pass, but there was one scene at 
Yorktown that we will wish to review. 

It was again October (1824) ; the committee 
who were to entertain Lafayette at Yorktown met 
him on the boat that was to convey him thither: 

''We are deputed," said the speaker, "by our 
fellow-citizens, now assembled at Yorktown, to 
welcome you to Virginia. 

" In the numerous assembly now awaiting your 
arrival, the noblest emotions are swelling in every 
bosom, engaging every tongue, and beaming 
from every eye. 

"Virginia, of all the States, owes you the 
greatest debt of gratitude. This State was the 
chief scene of your services. In the days of her 
greatest peril Washington selected you, his youth- 
ful friend, for the chief command, and to you 
intrusted the defense of his native State. 



192 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

" And now, after the lapse of forty-three years, 
you visit this spot again, happy to renew the 
recollections of the past." 

The beach and the heights of Yorktown were 
crowded with happy people. All hearts beat faster 
as the boat bearing Lafayette drew near. The 
air was a glory of colors, and trembled with cheers. 

Noble were the thoughts with which the 
Governor of Virginia ended his address of 
welcome : 

" No other man, at any date of history, has ever 
received the tribute of a nation's feelings which 
have flowed from the heart more gratefully and 
generously than that you witness now." 

At the end of the formal reception a soldier 
approached Lafayette. 

" I was with you at Yorktown," he said. " I en- 
tered yonder redoubt at your side." He added — 
" I was also at the side of the gallant De Kalb, 
when he fell on the field." 

The eyes of Lafayette filled with tears. He 
must have recalled the vow that the Baron made 
with him at the Carolinian shore. 

Lafayette gazed on the happy faces of the 
multitude. 



THE UNEXPECTED MEETING. I93 

This was not the field of Waterloo. It was 
the field that won a new age for the world. It 
was the field of a cause, not of men. 

The son of Lafayette must here have seen the 
true greatness of his father's character. What 
was all they had suffered on a day like this ? 




CHAPTER XXVII. 

LAGRANGE. 

T was at the end of the year 1825 ; Malan, 
the Jew, had made a journey to Metz, 
and he left the place for Paris, over the 

same road he had gone in 1790 with the delegates 

of the federation, singing : 

" It will come ; it will come ! " 

The (^a h^a still haunted him, and the visions of 

the 14th of July, when Lafayette laid his sword 

upon the altar of liberty came back to him. 

Great changes had taken place. The fall of 

Napoleon had led to the constitutional throne of 

another Louis, to be followed by the rise of Louis 

Philippe, the citizen king, when France was again 

to have peace. But amid all these changes the 

principles of the constitution of Lafayette were 

to remain ; whatever had happened, or might 

come, Lafayette had enthroned the constitution of 

the people to be the protector of the rights of the 

194 



LAGRANGE. jg^ 

French. To the people of France and of America 
he had indeed proved the true Knight of Liberty. 
" I must visit Lafayette," said the old Jew, as 
he passed along. "We feel events before they 
come; our life comes to us first as a dream. I 
have always wished to meet Lafayette, since I first 
heard of his name. I have learned that he has 
taken up the cause of the slaves in the West 
India Islands and in America; a true Knight, 
that. I wonder if he ever thought of the Jew. 

" ' ^a tra, ga ira, ga ira. 

The humble shall be exalted, 
The exalted shall be abased ! ' 

" Would that there might arise some Lafayette 
in the world to champion the cause of my people. 
Did ever any wild beasts treat the beasts of the 
forests as my own people have been treated by 
mankind ? The liberty of the world can never be 
achieved until my people have their rights. 

" ' ^a ira, ga ira, ga ira.' 

"The day will come ; the man will come. I am 
going to Paris, and then I will journey to La- 
grange to see Lafayette, and tell him that it was 
I, the Jew, that sent the bag of gold." 



196 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

He went to Paris, and dreamed again of that 
day of liberty, July 14, 1790. He then jour- 
neyed toward Lagrange, the home of Lafayette. 

Beautiful was Lagrange among the mountains ; 
its streams and its trees. Lafayette had just 
returned from his visit to America, where he had 
been the Nation's guest. The whole country, from 
the Hudson to the Mississippi, had rung with the 
shout of ''Vive Lafayette ! '' His journey, as we 
have shown, had been a triumphal march under 
streaminor flaofs and floral arches. All American 
doors had stood open to him. 

It was a fete day at Lagrange as the Jew 
approached. The children of the country had 
assembled to honor Lafayette. The Knight of 
Liberty was beloved by all the people where he 
lived ; these people had often assembled to do 
him honor, and now the children had come. 

Why was Lafayette so beloved by his neigh- 
bors, and why had the children assembled to wel- 
come him home from America? 

We will let one of his most beloved friends, 
M. Gates Cloquet, tell the wonderful story of how 
Lafayette treated his neighbors, who came to love 
him so greatly. This writer draws the following 




Lafayette's wife visits him in prison. 



(See page 145.) 



LAGRANGE. 



197 



picture and we may study it before we follow 
the Jew : 

" To the indigent inhabitants of his canton 
Lafayette's beneficence was unbounded. Two 
hundred pounds of bread, baked expressly at the 
farm for the support of the poor, were distributed 
to them every Monday, at the chateau ; and in 
times of scarcity, the weekly distribution was 
increased to six hundred pounds. The bread thus 
given was of the same quality as that eaten at 
Lafayette's own table, and at the seasons last 
mentioned, each individual received a mess of 
soup and a sol in addition to his portion. If the 
poor were seized with some grevious malady, 
Lafayette visited them, and had them attended to, 
at his own expense, by Dr. Sautereau, whose 
talent is equal to his modesty, and whose devotion 
to the poor sufferers afforded the best proof of his 
goodness of heart, and his attachment to Lafay- 
ette's family. There exists at Court Palais a 
charitable institution founded by the family of 
Noailles. Lafayette, as having married a Mile, 
de Noailles, contributed to defray the expenses 
of this establishment; and besides, such patients 
as could not be attended to at their homes 
were taken care of at his expense at the hospital 
of Rosay. 

"Dr. Sautereau had been an inhabitant of 



198 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

Lagrange for thirty-six years, and was in posses- 
sion of Lafayette's confidence as a physician, and 
of his affection as a friend. Few have been so 
well acquainted with Lafayette's private life as he 
was, and few have felt more admiration for his vir- 
tues and his noble disposition. ' All Lafayette's 
moments at Lagrange,' observed he to me one 
day, ' resemble each other, for they are all 
marked by good feelings or good actions.' It 
was from him that I obtained the following anec- 
dotes, which he related to me with tears in 
his eyes, and with the emotion of a man who 
regretted that he had himself been unable to per- 
form the good actions of which he spoke. 

" A man, one day in his presence, spoke ill of 
Lafayette, and, by way of answer, he related to 
him the following anecdote : 

" When Lafayette became possessor of 
Lagrange, he wished to make his property as 
compact as possible, and with that view purchased 
several small pieces of land that had intermingled 
with his estate. One of these small properties 

belonged to a peasant named P , who raised 

all the difficulties imaginable, in order to obtain 
an exorbitant price for his land ; he was even dis- 
posed to go to law with Lafayette about a ditch 
which the latter had dug in his neighborhood ; in 
short, he took his measures so effectually that he 
obtained from the General at least three times the 



LAGRANGE. I99 

value of his property. Two or three years after- 
ward, the very same peasant, not content with 
having fleeced Lafayette, attempted secretly to 
cut some wood in his park; but unfortunately for 
him, he fell from the top of an oak, broke his 
thigh, and was seized by the keepers, flagrante 
delicto. Lafayette was informed of the accident 
by the wounded man himself, who had been trans- 
ported to the chateau, and who applied to him for 
assistance. Havinof learned the circumstances 
under which he had broken his thigh, the General 
sent Sautereau to the man to set the limb. 
When it was observed to him that the individual 
whom he assisted was the man who endeavored to 
force him into a law-suit, * No matter,' replied he; 
' if I do him good he may feel his injustice to me, 
and perhaps regret his exaction on the subject 
of our exchange of property.' The case having 
proved extremely serious, forty days after the 
accident Lafayette had the patient transported to 
Paris, and taken care of at his own expense, 
though, in reality, the man was wholly unworthy 
of his kindness. The fact abundantly proves 
that the General could forget base conduct, and 
return good for evil. 

" In the month of December, 1806, M. 
Sautereau was summoned to attend an artisan of 
Rosay, named Cerceau, for a fracture of the leg. 
The cold was excessive ; the poor patient and his 



200 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

wife, who attended him, had but a small provision 
of wood, but they were aware that their doctor 
saw patients at Lagrange, and that the excellent 
inhabitants of the chateau were always disposed 
to relieve the unfortunate. They accordingly 
besought the doctor to make an appeal to Mme. 
Lafayette's charity, in order to obtain for them 
wherewithal to warm themselves. M. Sautereau 
undertook to discharge the commission, and with 
the greater readiness, as he was persuaded that 
the demand would be favorably received. The 
next morning, on paying his visit at Lagrange, 
he acquainted Mme. Lafayette with the wants of 
his patient, and the necessity of keeping up a fire 
night and day in his chamber on account of the 
excessive coldness of the weather. Mme. Lafa- 
yette, accosting her husband, who was present, 
asked if the good people might not be authorized 
to take a quarter cord of wood in Lagrange. 
' Nay, my love,' he replied, * give them rather a 
half cord, and the poor creatures will then be 
spared the trouble of coming so often.' The 
advice was followed. 

" M. Sautereau made me acquainted with 
another trait of Lafayette's humanity and deli- 
cacy, which is well worth recording. The wife of 
a certain ex-physician of Rosay, who carried on 
a trade to enable her husband to live with 
respectability, but who had neither the exactness 



LAGRANGE. 20I 

nor the economy necessary to insure her success 
in business, had signed a bill payable to order for 
the sum of four thousand francs, in favor of an 
individual in Berney, a village near the chateau of 
Lagrange. The bill, not having been paid when 
due, was protested. In the midst of her embar- 
rassments, the poor woman, reckoning upon 
Lafayette's extreme kindness, entreated him to 
extricate her from her dififiiculties, and he, affected 
by her situation, though suspecting her insol- 
vency, consented to pay the bill. Shortly after- 
ward Lafayette asked M. Sautereau if the lady 
whom he had obliged was in a condition to repay 
him according to her promise. M. Sautereau 
replied that in that part of the country she was 
said to be ruined ; that she was selling her furni- 
ture by degrees, but that she was still in posses- 
sion of some valuable pictures, and that, in his 
opinion, to accept them would prove the only 
mode of recoverinof the sum due from her. ' I 
prefer losing the money,' replied Lafayette, ' to 
being paid in that manner, and I am happy to 
have it in my power to offer as a gift to the poor 
woman what I had advanced as a loan.' It is 
necessary to remark that the husband of the lady 
had never been summoned to Lao^ranore in his 
medical capacity ; that Lafayette was not even 
personally acquainted with him, and that, conse- 
quently, his generous conduct was not dictated by 



202 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

gratitude, but solely by the desire of doing 
good. 

" At the period of the famine, 1817, the distress 
at Lagrange was excessive, and all the poor of 
the country and of the neighboring communes 
were fed at the chateau. As many as seven hun- 
dred might have been seen there every day. 
They received economical soup, bread, and 
money, but unfortunately the purses and the 
granaries were emptied before the end of the 
season. Toward the month of June, a family 
council was held at the chateau, to take into con- 
sideration the means of providing for the wants of 
so many unfortunate creatures. It was observed 
to Lafayette that it would be impossible to con- 
tinue the customary distribution, and that, before 
the expiration of six weeks, nothing would be left 
in the chateau. 

"'Well,' replied Lafayette, 'there is a very 
simple mode of solving this problem : we can live 
in Auvergne ; by retiring to Chavanaic, we may 
abandon to the poor what we should have con- 
sumed by remaining at Lagrange ; their existence 
will thus be prolonged till harvest time.' This 
proposal was joyfully accepted and put into execu- 
tion by his worthy family. 

" During the prevalence of a species of the 
cholera, which spread havoc in the environs of 
Lagrange in 1832, Lafayette, in spite of the 



LAGRANGE. 203 

entreaties of his family, insisted on proceeding to 
his country seat, to assist the victims of that horri- 
ble epidemic, in company with Dr. Thierry. The 
medicine which he took with him, his ice house, a 
considerable quantity of flannel, linen, woolen 
blankets, and I may add, his whole house, were 
entirely at the service of the neighboring villages. 
'While the scourge lasted,' said one, 'Lafa- 
yette was admirably seconded by his son and 
daughters, Mmes. de Maubourg and de Lasteyrie. 
M. George and his sisters had summoned to 
Lagrange M. Cardinal, a young physician remark- 
able for his zeal and activity. They went 
together to the villages and houses of the sick, 
were in movement night and day to assist and 
console the unfortunate patients, to whom they 
acted as nurses, and whom they were sometimes 
obliged to bury, when they fell victims to the 
disease. 

" A boarding-school for young ladies at Court 
Palais, under the direction of Mme. Ducloselle, 
had been converted by them into an extensive dis- 
pensary, where medicine was furnished to all the 
patients, rich and poor, indiscriminately. The 
villagers, panic-struck by the rapid spread of the 
epidemic, and thinking only of themselves, were 
retreating with precipitation from the scene of 
desolation, and abandoning the sick ; but the 
arrival of M. George and his sisters revived their 



204 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

drooping courage. By degrees they grew 
ashamed of their weakness, and being convinced, 
by the example of their benefactors, that the 
cholera was not contagious, they began to follow 
them into the houses, and at last consented to 
attend to such of their relatives and friends as had 
been attacked by the malady. Persons whose 
situation enabled them to estimate the expenses 
incurred by Lafayette, on the occasion of the epi- 
demic, rated them at 38,000 francs. 

" The following fact, simple as it is, will prove 
how the inhabitants of the country loved Lafa- 
yette. About three weeks ago, I made an excur- 
sion to Lagrange, in a cabriolet. By some 
fatality I mistook the road, and lost myself toward 
nightfall, in the midst of some plowed land. 
After a number of fruitless efforts, I almost de- 
spaired of regaining the road, when, at a distance, 
I perceived a glimmering light. Toward this guid- 
ing star I directed my steps, and at last reached 
the door of a cottage. An aged female, who was 
the inmate of it, was on the point of retiring to 
rest, but as soon as she heard of my wish to pro- 
ceed to Lagrange, she dressed herself in haste, 
put on her sabots, and an old cloak, the numerous 
patches of which attested the owner's anxiety to 
counteract the ravages of time, and then closed 
the door after her, and had the kindness to guide 
me, for more than a quarter of a league, through 



LAGRANGE. 205 

some most difficult crossroads. As we went 
along, she talked to me, in her own way, of the 
loss which the country had sustained in the 
person of the beneficent Lafayette, and gave me 
to understand that in acting as my guide she 
merely discharged a debt of gratitude to his 
memory. When we separated, the good old 
woman refused my thanks. I was as much 
affected by her kindness as I was fortunate in 
having met with her, since, but for her assistance, 
I should probably have been obliged to wait for 
daylight to reach Lagrange, which was more than 
two leao^ues distant from her cottagfe." 

Such was the heart of the man, as pictured by 
an intimate friend, whose chateau among the hills 
we now picture the old Jew as approaching. 

It was the loth of October, 1825, on the day 
before Lafayette had arrived. Nearly the whole 
population of the canton had met him at the gate. 
It had been like the arrival of a man at the gate 
of a paradise ; the atmosphere was filled with the 
voices of love. It was floral day on the loth. 
The little girls of the canton were to assemble in 
the park and fill the chateau with flowers. 

The same writer thus speaks of this flower day 
that followed the arrival of Lafayette at La- 



206 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

grange : " The inhabitants retired only after 
having conducted him, by the Hght of illumination 
and the sound of music, under the triumphal arch 
bearing an inscription in which they had awarded 
to him the title of the people's friend. There he 
was again greeted with the expression of the hap- 
piness and joy caused to his good neighbors by 
his return. During the whole of the next day, the 
General was occupied in receiving the young girls, 
who brought flowers and sang couplets to him, 
and also in meeting the company of the National 
Guard of Court Palais, and a deputation from the 
town of Rosay. While offering a box of flowers 
to their friend, the inhabitants of the commune 
addressed him in a simple and afi"ecting speech, 
through M. Fricotelle, the head of the deputation ; 
and no sooner had the oration been pronounced, 
than the whole people rushed into the General's 
arms, and afterward into those of his son, M. 
George Lafayette. On the following Sunday, the 
inhabitants of Rosay and the environs offered a 
brilliant fete to Lafayette, the expense of which 
was defrayed by a general subscription. The 
preparations, which occupied several days, were 
the work of a portion of the citizens, who refused 



LAGRANGE. 20/ 

the assistance of a single hired laborer. At five 
o'clock in the evening the apartments and the 
courts of the chateau of Lagrange were filled by 
upward of four thousand persons, many of whom 
had traveled several leagues to do homage to the 
man whose name dwelt on every tongue as the 
people s friend" 

It was near nightfall of October lo, 1825, 
when old Malan entered the Park. The chateau 
rose solemn and gray under the long shadows of 
the mountains ; the woods were beeinninsf to wear 
an autumnal luster, but the park was like fairy 
land. Children were everywhere, bearing the last 
bright flowers of the year. 

In a tent in the midst of a great meadow, which 
had been arranged for him, sat Lafayette and his 
family. The Jew approached the tent. 

" It is a happy company that you have about 
you, Monsieur," said the Jew. " But I see none 
of my own race among them, and I hope I do not 
presume ?" 

" You are a stranger to me, and I assure you 
that you are welcome. We know no race at a 
gathering like this, and as for me, I hope that any 
feeling that esteemed one race more than another 



208 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

has long since died within me. My country is the 
world, and my race is humanity, and my brethren 
are mankind. One heart, one brain, one common 
form, and the same origin and end have all men. 
The cradle and the coffin brino- the first and the 
final sleep. Whence do you come ? " 

" From Metz. I am a Hungarian Jew. I have 
lived in Vienna." 

" And what brings you here ? Any need of my 
service ?" 

" No ! yourself." 

" I do not remember that I ever did you any 
service, but I would be glad to remember that I 
had. Sit down, you must be weary, and I esteem 
it a compliment that you are interested in myself." 
" I once sought to do you a service." 
" I am glad to know it. When ?" 
" When you were a prisoner at Olmiitz." 
" I am greatly interested. How was that?" 
" I sent to you, by young Huger, a little bag of 
gold. It was given to you on the night of the 
affair in the wood. You remember ?" 
" I remember. What is your name ? " 
" They call me Malan, in Vienna — Malan the 
Jew. 



LAGRANGE. 209 

" I wish that I could have done or could do 
some service to your race." 

" You have rendered services to other races 
that the common world does not esteem. It is 
such thines as these that have led me to esteem 
you. General Lafayette, you have the first place 
in this poor old heart. I know, as few know, the 
value of liberty." 

" Malan, my friend ! I would like to talk with 
you. Let my friend here take you to the chateau, 
and give you a more quiet hospitality than you 
can have here. I will join you there soon." 

The old Jew was led to the chateau. 

It was early evening. A rocket shot into the 
sky. The people were lighting lanterns in the 
trees, and the hunter's moon, like a gate of heaven, 
illumined the dusky east. A single star hung 
over the brow of the mountains, and the woods 
grew dark in the quiet night. The old Jew was 
given a liberal meal. Rocket followed rocket on 
the lawn. The bands began to play, and amid 
the bright lights of the opening of the fete, Lafa- 
yette came stealing away from the field of the fes- 
tival to meet Malan the Jew. 

" You are welcome, more than welcome, as I 



2IO THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

said," spoke the Marquis. " I am glad that I owe 
you a debt of gratitude, though I wish it were the 
other way. Let me thank you from out of a truly 
grateful heart for the bag of gold. That it mis- 
carried does not change the prompting and inten- 
tion of your heart. You spoke to me of young 
Huger, the Carolinian." 

" The young man from the States." 

" I met him in America. He was but a child 
when I first saw him. I was mysteriously 
attracted to him, perhaps because he had a 
French name, and he offered his life for me in the 
affair in the wood, though I scarcely spoke to 
him, and did not know him. He came to me 
amid the noble receptions that were given in my 
honor in New York. 

" Malan, my venerable friend, it is no common 
event of life to meet one who has offered his life 
for your sake. My heart melted as he told me 
the simple story. He is one of the many sons of 
my heart. Oh, how rich is life in friends ! I 
bless heaven for them !" 

" The world is yours," said Malan. " Napoleon 
fought for France, but also for ambition and 
glory. You fought for a cause outside of your- 



LAGRANGE. 211 

self, and your name will live with the cause. 
Lafayette, what was it Napoleon used to call 
Marshal Ney?" 

" 'The bravest of the brave.' Ney was a very 
brave man," 

" General Lafayette, he is a braver man who 
can say no to the field of honor and glory, and to 
wealth and fame, than he who fights to win what 
ambition most covets and esteems. You have 
been able to say no to yourself, in every cause 
where sacrifice would best serve mankind. In my 
view, you are the bravest of the brave ; and one 
day the world will so count your name and 
fame." 

" But, my good friend, let me show the picture 
of one who was as brave as any man who ever 
lived. See, here is a portrait framed in gold. 
Let me uncover it." 

" Whence does it come ? " 

" I brought it from America. It was presented 
to me by the city of Charleston, South Carolina, 
one of the United States." 

Lafayette uncovered the portrait slowly in the 
dim light. 

In the park the fireworks were delighting the 



212 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

crowds. The moon was rising, and music filled 
the air. 

" This young man," said Lafayette, " surren- 
dered himself to what seemed to him to have been 
ruin to save me. He was rich, a mere lad, and 
had a widowed mother. Amid hostile strangers 
he said in his true heart, ' Welcome any fate, if 
Lafayette be but saved ! ' The high quality of 
gratitude in his heart was more than life. Such a 
man is a hero. I will transfer the phrase with 
which you have knighted me to him." 

Lafayette set the picture before the light. The 
Jew started, and his eyes filled with tears. 

" That is Francis Huger," he said. " Do you 
know why he ofifered all he had for you ? " 

" Yes, my good friend. Why ? " 

"What is a knight?" 

" A knight ? It is he who for honor champions 
a cause ! " 

" General Lafayette, you hold Huger to be one 
of the bravest of the brave. He had a highborn 
nature, and he looked upon you as the champion 
of the rights of man — the knight of liberty ! 

" General Lafayette, a knight makes a knight, 
and whatever tends to righteousness, that is right. 



LAGRANGE. 213 

I shall never see you again. I go out into the 

night. •My days are swifter than a weaver's 

shuttle. My hard life is glorified in this word of 

cheer. The thought makes me happy. General 

Lafayette, I leave with you the voice of time. 
Knight of Liberty, farewell ! 

" f« ira, ga ira, ga ira. 
The humble shall be exalted ! " 



15 




CHAPTER XXVIII. 

WHAT MADE HIM GREAT. 

MAN is not a hero until he can say no 
to wealth, honors, preferment, or any 
advantage to himself that he may deem 
detrimental to the world. Lafayette had indeed 
said to the agent of the King of Prussia, who had 
offered him freedom in return for an alliance with 
a foreign power against his own enemies in 
France : " No — my name is Lafayette." In that 
hour he not only said no to a great temptation to 
gain relief from imprisonment, but what might 
have been, to another, a great opportunity for 
revenge. 

No man can ever be conquered who has con- 
quered himself. And no man can be a hero, and 
rise with godlike beauty, who does not make his 
affections subordinate to his moral will. A man 
enchained by his affections and passions cannot 

be free, he is a slave to the earth ; all his powers 

214 



WHAT MADE HIM GREAT. 21$ 

of godlike action are prisoners. The affections 
are noble under control. ' 

" So many remarks have been made in a party 
spirit," once said Lafayette, " that it may not be 
out of place here, to assert that no private affec- 
tion has ever diverted rrie from my public duty. 
In the course of these years of power I encour- 
aged none to speak well of me, and prevented 
none from speaking ill." 

But not only must a true hero be able to say no 
to any allurement from duty, and rise superior to 
his private affections, he must be able to lose 
himself in a cause, and become the soul of the 
noble principles that he advocates. Such was 
Lafayette. 

" Ah, sir," wrote he from the prison of 
Magdeburg to M. d'Archenholz, speaking of the 
necessity in which he had been placed, of exiling 
himself after the loth of August, 1792, "how 
great are my obligations to you for having sym- 
pathized with the inexpressible pangs of my 
soul, — ardent in the cause of humanity, thirsting 
after glory, tenderly loving my country, my 
family, my friends, — when after sixteen years' 
labor I was compelled to tear myself from the 



2l6 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

happiness of combating in defense of the prin- 
ciples and the opinions for which alone I had 
lived ! " 

" Every man," says a great thinker, " is a 
debtor to his profession." Lafayette recognized 
that he owed the highest moral character to his 
position as a leader of the people. He knew the 
meaning of ruined influence. 

When he had not a great call to serve in the 
national councils or field, he felt it his duty to 
live as a simple citizen ; of this he says : 

"The hope of thus serving my country would 
be to me an additional motive to preserve undi- 
minished the species of moral power attached to 
my personal character ; and should this hope 
prove illusive, as it is the only one which I call my 
own, I have only to balance the individual advan- 
tages of fortune or tranquillity with the benefit 
which the public may still find in my passive state 
of existence. You thus see that, independently of 
my natural and insurmountable feelings, I ought, 
as a matter of calculation, to permit myself no 
indulgence on this point." 

And, to be a true hero, one must seek moral 
power without the spirit of revenge. It is a mean 



"WHAT MADE HIM GREAT. 217 

man that would seek to be revenged on anyone. 
Lafayette had learned this principle well. One of 
his most intimate friends and a biographer, after 
describinof- his almost boundless charities and his 
pity for all who were friendless or unfortunate, 
says : " Lafayette's elevated social position, his 
fortune, his numerous connections in both hemi- 
spheres, enabled him to render important services, 
and his benevolent solicitude was exerted in favor 
of distant as well as of nearer objects. He some- 
times found grateful hearts, though his kindness 
was often repaid with the blackest ingratitude ; 
but it may be said to his credit that he never 
cherished, I will not say hatred, for that feeling 
was unworthy of his noble soul, but even the 
slighest resentment, against a human being. He 
forgot injuries, or rather, they left no trace on his 
mind, which was the abode only of kind and gen- 
erous sentiments. Gratitude was, in his opinion, 
a feeling which reflected as much honor on the 
receiver as a kindness on the bestower. Ingrati- 
tude he looked upon as the offspring of selfishness 
or vanity, and he was accustomed to say that with 
the ungrateful there was no resource ; that the 
best way was to keep them at a distance when 



2l8 • THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

known, or to avoid them when once made their 
victim. Groveling in adversity and insolent in 
prosperity, you are everything to the ungrateful 
man when he wants you, and nothing to him when 
he can dispense with your assistance. Gratitude 
is a burden only to a bad heart ; for this reason 
Lafayette was not afraid of contracting obliga- 
tions, which he repaid with interest whenever an 
opportunity occurred. One grateful heart made 
him forget a thousand instances of ingratitude, 
and thus he continued to oblige, though his kind- 
ness was often thrown away. The happiness 
which he felt in doing good would not permit him 
to refuse kind offices, and the surest way to oblige 
him was to afford him the opportunity of being 
useful to others. I have often availed myself of 
his kindness on behalf of my friends or of worthy 
individuals, and in so doing I felt conscious that I 
was guilty of no importunity. His confidence 
was, no doubt, often abused, and recommendations 
were obtained from him which he would have 
refused had he been induced by a little more dis- 
trust, or even circumspection, to procure accurate 
information as to the objects of his kindness. 
Whenever he ascertained that he had been 



WHAT MADE HIM GREAT. 219 

deceived, he made a resolution to be more 
reserved for the future ; but his natural goodness 
always got the better of him, and his experience 
was of but little use in putting him on his guard 
against fresh solicitations." 

He gave himself to the highest cause that com- 
manded his service in early years and he never 
departed from its principles. Says the same 
friend of him, in some personal recollections: 
" Lafayette valued reputation and glory, but 
cared little for the power that generally results 
from them. Having one day been asked who, in 
his opinion, was the greatest man of this age : 
' In my idea,' replied he, * General Washington is 
the greatest man; for I look upon him as the 
most virtuous.' 

" A short time after a great national move- 
ment to make him a king, an Englishman arrived 
from London to Paris to see Lafayette, and 
returned as soon as he had accomplished his 
object. Some of his countrymen wished to 
detain him, but he refused their solicitations, and 
said, on leaving them, ' I was desirous of seeing- a 
man who had refused a crown ; I have seen him, 
and return content.' 



220 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. ' 

" Lafayette," says the same writer, " loved truth 
above all things, and rejected all that could 
change or corrupt its nature. Like Epaminon- 
das, he would not have suffered himself even in 
joke to utter the slightest falsehood. He was the 
mirror of truth, even in the midst of political 
parties, whose condemnation he pronounced by 
presenting to them the hideous image of their 
passions ; he thus offended without convincing 
them, and the mirror, being declared deceitful, 
was destined to be broken. I once heard him 
say, * The court would have accepted me, had I 
been an aristocrat, and the Jacobins, had I been a 
Jacobin, but as I wished to side with neither, both 
united ao^ainst me.' " 

This is high praise, and it pictures the true way 
that a young man should enter upon life, if he 
would have harvests that will satisfy his soul. To 
follow the Divine Ought that is born in the soul 
of every man, is to find an exalted contentment in 
life, joy in death, and the sure elevation to a 
better existence hereafter. 

We have told the story of how once more was 
the great man's soul to be tried ; how Napoleon 
Bonaparte flashed forth like a meteor, and gained 



WHAT MADE HIM GREAT. 221 

control of France, and scattered her enemies, and 
it was proposed to elect him consul for life. 

Napoleon knew Lafayette as a true knight of 
liberty, who drew his sword only for a cause. 
He sought to draw him after him, and would no 
doubt been glad to have given to him the place, 
opportunity, and honors of Murat or Marshal Ney. 

Lafayette read Napoleon. He saw that he was 
fighting not only for the glory of France but for 
himself and empire. The crisis came. Lafayette 
was again in the national councils. Should he 
follow this new star ? 

Should he vote to make Napoleon consul for 
life ? No ! 

He voted no. He followed the Divine Ought 
to his own detriment. He made, as we have 
shown. Napoleon his enemy, and the conqueror 
went so far as to cause the son of Lafayette to be 
ignored in the army. 

He saw Marshal Ney come to be called " The 
Bravest of the Brave." He saw Murat married 
to the sister of Napoleon and given the crown of 
Naples. He found himself neglected at the new 
Imperial court. He had invited it, and he was 
silent. 



222 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

But the Ought within him had demanded that 
vote of NO. 

Napoleon brought half of Europe at his feet, 
and scaled the Alps. The world applauded or 
shuddered. Would this man possess Europe or 
fall? 

Lafayette could not then be certain, but could 
be silent. 

Had Lafayette, in these dazzling years of the 
conquests of France, no regret that he had voted 
no ? No ! And should Napoleon fall, could 
Lafayette be magnanimous toward him who 
sought to ruin even the hopes of his own boy? 
Yes! 

We repeat this experience of the life of Lafa- 
yette. To sttffer silence for the conviction of right 
and justice is often the noblest achievement of the 
soul. With all of his glorious deeds in war, there 
is a great example in this silence of Lafayette. 

We here take leave of Lafayette in the simple 
narrative which we have formed, which has 
adhered so nearly to history as to have but 
slight threads of fiction. What is the lesson ? 
Simply this, that character is everything ! He 
was great as the knight that championed 



WHAT MADE HIM GREAT. 223 

American liberty ; great as the creator of the 
constitution of France, which, after nearly a cen- 
tury of changes, has ended in one of the fairest 
republics on earth ; but he was greater when he 
said No to self, to luxury, and to every seeming 
advantage that could tempt the soul of a man. 
He could suffer, and if needs be, die, but he 
could not imperil his honor. 

" My life and honor both together run ; 
Take honor from me, and my Hfe is done." 

Let us part from this character, whose influence 
is immortal, because it stands for a cause, as 
Washington parted from him, when he saw him 
for the last time. 

It was a bright Indian summer day. The roads 
of Maryland were glorious with the lusters of 
early fall. The air was mellow, and the noon was 
past. 

They had driven toward Annapolis, Washing- 
ton and Lafayette. The latter was to embark for 
France. 

The two generals separated on that day, as 
brothers would part whose hearts were one. 

But the heart of Washington did not leave 
Lafayette. It followed him. 



224 THE KNIGHT OF LIBERTY. 

The great life that he had loved grew upon him 
as he sat down amid the shades of Mount Vernon 
after that ride. He had not expressed all that 
his deep nature desired at that hour of parting 
by the way. So he wrote to this friend what 
remained to be said : 

" In the moment of our separation, upon the 
road as we traveled, and every hour since, I have 
felt all that love, respect, and attachment for you 
with which length of years, close connection, and 
your merits have inspired me. 

" I often asked myself, as our carriages sepa- 
rated, whether this were the last sight I should 
ever have of you. 

" My fears answered Yes. 

" I called to mind the days of youth, that they 
had long fled to return no more ; that I was 
descending the hill I had been fifty-two years in 
climbing ; and, that though I was blessed with a 
good constitution, I was of a short-lived family, 
and might soon expect to be entombed in the 
mansions of my fathers. 

" These thoughts darkened the shades and gave 
gloom to the picture, and, consequently, to the 
prospect of seeing you again." 



WHAT MADE HIM GREAT. 22$ 

If such a life inspired the heart of Washington 
to such words as these, it may well give the direc- 
tion of patriotic endeavor to the American youth. 
Young Huger, in the wood of Olmutz, is a pic- 
ture out of life, and what he felt, who would not 
feel, and what he offered, who would not offer, 
for such as he who rose above self for the welfare 
of his fellow-men, and was to France the father of 
constitutional rights, and, to our own nation, the 
Knight of Liberty ! 

" Where liberty dwells^ there ever will be the 
country of Lafayette ! " 



THE END. 



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